A Renegade's Resolve
by JaerWolfe
Summary: The ending as seen through my Renegade's eyes...updated the final chapters and is now complete.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I like writing fanfic. There is a freedom, a challenge in writing using someone else's world, someone else's lore that is just as satisfactory as writing in a world and lore I have created from my imagination alone. One of the challenges, however, is taking the lore & world build of someone else and making it dance to steps of my choosing when the music played is sour and off key. The endings in ME3 were stupid. All of them. I spent more time debating the ending choices, trying to figure out what I had possibly missed in the narrative of the game that would explain what was about to happen than I did my first ME1 play through deciding between Kaidan or Ashley. If I don't like it, I 'fix' it. Or 'fics' it, take your pick, lol.

So here is the ending with my Renegade Rache and my Renegade Kaidan.

* * *

Rache Shepard blinked the blood from her eyes trying to focus on the shimmering figure of the child, trying to understand the choices that had just be given to her. She wasn't sure if it was blood loss or pain that was causing the disconnect, the baffled incomprehension of what was being told to her by the child avatar…or maybe it was the scream of grief and denial she'd been keeping pent up inside ever since staggering past Kaidan's broken body because the mission still had to be completed.

Everything she had done was meaningless. Everything. The old feuds she had settled. The peace treaties she had brokered. The curing of the genophage. None of it mattered now. All of the deaths…Thane, Mordin, Vega…Gods, Anderson. _Kaidan_. Nothing mattered.

She wanted to sit down. To just sit and be done and not move again ever because nothing that she had done had made a single bit of difference in the end. She even had a nice lightshow going on in the background. Look…more pretty fireworks from a Reaper laser as it hit that turian dreadnought and the ship began to break apart. How often did one see that?

A turian dreadnought that was only in orbit around earth because she had arranged for them to be here, dying so far from their homes and their loved ones.

"Control. Synthesis. Destroy." She closed her eyes, swaying slightly. "I came here to destroy the Reapers. That has been my goal from day one. But if I destroy them, I destroy the geth. I sacrificed the quarian race because those imbeciles couldn't understand the order to retreat every time I gave it to them and because I thought the geth would have a greater tactical advantage in this war. If I destroy the reapers and the geth the deaths…the _sacrifice_ of the quarian race will have meant nothing. No." She shook her head but stopped quickly as dizziness stole over her.

As if too solidify her position she turned from the path leading to the destroy functions and faced straight ahead.

"Synthesis. A melding of organic and non-organic. Sounds nice and easy…until you start looking closer. It would be me choosing for all life everywhere. Me playing God and determining the fate of all those around me. Human. Turian. Asari. Geth. Even batarian. Plants, bugs, everything. A solution so that organic and in-organic can be forced to live together in peace." She looked into the skyline once more, searching the battlefield claiming far too many allied species and far too few Reapers.

There, that was what she was looking for. Silent she watched as the geth ships placed themselves between the Reapers deadly beams and the more vulnerable smaller Alliance ships.

"Yes, clearly synthetic life forms care nothing for organic and we need to force everyone to become the same so they can learn to live together in peace and harmony. Peace through mediocrity rather than strength through diversity. Great choice." She drawled with heavy sarcasm. "So the reason I can't outright destroy the Reapers is the same as why Synthesis is invalid for me. The geth. Ironic, when you think about it. I spent a lot of my first months as a spectre killing geth…now I count them as allies. I don't screw over my allies. Not when they're dying because I asked them to." The words were harsh.

"There are other…" The child avatar began.

"Shut up." Rache snarled at him. "I've had more than enough out of you. Keep it up and I'll unleash a singularity on your ass just so I feel better." Of course using what little energy she had left was more than likely to leave her bleeding to death on the floor.

The avatar wisely said nothing.

"So. Control." She faced the control port, trying once more to get the blood out of her eyes. The left was having a particularly bad time and she wasn't sure how secure the eyeball was in the socket. "My whole life has been about control. About having power so that I control the outcome of events. About making circumstances go the way I want because that is the only acceptable option for me. Should be an easy pick, right?"

"The Illusive Man…"

"_Shut up._ Research the word 'rhetorical'. In _silence_." Rache snapped at it again before limping toward the blue option. "Control enslaves the Reapers. Forces them to do what I want. If I want them dancing a can-can chorus line while singing my praises, I can. Control _enslaves_ them."

The avatar said nothing this time.

"When I was sixteen years old slavers raided my home. They killed or captured everyone they could get their hands on." Rache's lips curled, her eyes narrowed as she stared at the rods glowing before her. "I _loathe_ slavers more than anything else in my life. And the least crappy solution is the one where I become one. Fuck you, Fate. And your little dog, too."

Weary, in pain, and oh, so tired, she listed to one side, her eyes closing as she tried to think, tried to make sense of what was being asked of her. What would Kaidan do?

Not a damn thing because he was dead.

Images of his body on the ground flickered through her mind's eye once more and her shoulders slumped even more. What did it matter then? Time to give death a second chance and see if this time she stayed dead.

Reaching out, Rache wrapped both hands about the rods…and felt her sanity implode.

* * *

Time lost all meaning as information rushed at her faster than the rudimentary speed of her natural brain's processes. Compensation was made. Modifications. Organic became more synthetic and comprehension began to sort order from chaos as the impressions of a myriad of reapers became clear and understood.

_"Cease."_ The thought was all that was needed since she was no longer bound by the former limits of her mostly organic physical body and had ascended to a higher platform.

**"Why?"** They demanded of her, showing their victory, Harbinger's voice the loudest as it used sensors to scan the rubble strewn ground in London, showing her the fruits of its harvest.

There had been a reason why they needed to stop…it had been a good reason, too. A reason that seemed to no longer matter…as if it had belonged to an insignificant mind now being made aware of its own potential greatness.

**"We will continue as we always have."** Harbinger persisted as its scanner touched the corpses laying so close to the teleportation conduit.

Kaidan breathed.

_"Kaidan!"_ She shrieked wordlessly, her mind pulling herself from their consensus, demanding her own individuality take the forefront.

He was alive.

**"Its biotic potential makes it ideal for indoctrination."** Harbinger intoned sensing her interest. **"Simple repairs to its rudimentary form are required."**

"Complete repairs." Rache ordered and immediately Kaidan's DNA patterns began to flash through her consciousness.

Information from Reaper archives began to make themselves known suggesting genetic manipulation. Paths that would make the subject a more effective agent of the Reapers. Without thought she made simple adjustments, tweaking, tossing aside the tech implanted in him as organic nodes were refined giving him needed biotic boosts and control.

**"Begin indoctrination proto…"** Harbinger began.

"No!" Rache countered. "There is another beside him. Modifications are required." Her senses took in the badly beaten form of James Vega and began once again to tweak, to refine.

**"Begin indoctrination…"** Harbinger tried again.

"Denied." Rache began to pull her own mind further from the overwhelming influence of those she was directly in contact with. "Report status."

From across the galaxy information poured through her about the state of the harvest. Areas that had been completed. Areas that were showing resistance. Projected targets to harvest next.

"Denied." Rache's thoughts began only to have the consciousness of those she sought to control try to fight back.

The harvest must be concluded, millions of voices called out to her. The pattern must be continued…already a rudimentary species was being marked as having potential for the next cycle.

"Denied!" She rasped again and began to feel the power in the crucible build, preparing to fire.

The relays would be destroyed. She couldn't stop that even as the reaper thoughts she was in collusion with began relaying probabilities to her of the survival rate of those they were harvesting.

Thessia…complete. No viable remnants remain free of indoctrination.

Palaven…in process. Planet harvest/subjugation 72 percent complete.

Sur'Kesh…in process. Planet harvest/subjugation 53 percent complete.

Earth…in process. Planet harvest/subjugation 89 percent complete. Orbital scan indicates viable races for harvest and repurposing in significant numbers. Indoctrination of lesser organics proposed. Agents could then sabotage various spacecraft leaving them open to additional harvesting.

"Denied." Rache pulled together the tattered strings of her sense of self and began to jerk them close. Information flooded her thoughts. Simply comprehending the basics of what was being burned through her mind drove her to the brink of sanity but she was learning just how insignificant their attempts at fighting the Reapers had been.

Even fighting back had been part of the program of the cycle. Humans had not been the first to try it and unless her will prevailed, they would not be the last.

To protect the future, the mass relays _had_ to be destroyed. Being forced to create their own solutions for technological advancements would prevent the sole dependence on Reaper technology and prevent the Reapers from controlling the cycle. Or starting it all over again.

Destroying the mass relays gave the future hope…but only if the various species survived.

Programs answered her demands and Rache ran hypothetical paths of reconstruction based on the current time reports the Reapers flooded her with.

Thessia…no viability. Asari on various outlying colonies would propagate the race.

Palaven…viable. Success parameters increased if fleets in orbit around Earth were returned. Transportation protocols via teleportation of ground troops to life sustaining space craft and then to mass relays implemented.

Sur'Kesh…viable. Success parameters indicate planet/species levels sufficient for propagation. Earth…viability diminished. Indoctrination protocols, harvest levels leave remnant population diminished. Alternate probabilities for human propagation required.

**Proposed: **repurpose Reaper hardshells into liveships capable of carrying survivors in species sustainable numbers.

The part of Rache that remembered being human revolted violently.

"Proposal rejected." She whispered and could feel the buildup of power in the crucible. "Alternate paths required."

**Proposed:** restructure of human forms to adapt to baseline inorganic needs reducing the demand on limited natural resources.

The surge was growing, the power pulling in on itself, demanding an outlet, a purpose.

"Proposal rejected!" Rache managed the thoughts, trying to contain the energy, to control it. "Alternate paths _required!_"

**Proposed:** smaller numbers of genetically diverse human survivors placed on resource rich planets capable of sustaining and propagating the species.

She had to hold on, to maintain control just a bit longer. She had to give the human race a fighting chance. "List resource rich planets acceptable to human propagation parameters."

Information spun through her mind, faster than a human could comprehend but Rache was no longer just human. She wasn't even sure she was human. Or had been since Cerberus rebuilt her. Hell, maybe she wasn't even Shepard anymore. Just a very clever AI capable of mimicking and predicting what the real and inconveniently dead Rache Shepard would do or say in any given situation. A better built version of the abomination she'd seen among the refugees.

Part of her, the part that still thought of itself as an individual, as human, denied the thought she was anything but real.

_"You're real enough to me."_ Kaidan's words. Kaidan's confidence. Kaidan's faith.

"Destination selected." She picked a planet lush with green life and no native sentient species. "New instructions supersede all other commands."

**"Selection of genetically diverse human survivors has begun. Transference of required individuals to life sustaining space craft has begun. Space craft transference via Sol relay has begun. Requesting further instruction."**

She could feel the last of her consciousness going, her body literally being pulled apart as the beam began to break free of her control and pain began to splinter her sanity leaving only fragments of self identity remaining.

**"Final instructions accepted."**


	2. Chapter 2

Kaidan jerked upright, the echo of a scream in his ears.

Rache's scream…

"Rache?" He called scrambling from their bed on board the Normandy, his gaze darting about the messy room. Ammo crates and armor bits were tossed haplessly across the floor. The models she had gathered with the express purpose of smashing into each other in mock battle with the glee of a demented child were scattered about, some hanging drunkenly from their proud perches while others, some in pieces, decorated the desk.

The Normandy was silent.

"EDI." Kaidan spoke hearing the panic in his own voice.

No answer.

No sound of engines. No hum of a craft in motion. Nothing.

"Rache!" He shouted this time before trying to cycle the door open. No reaction. No hint of energy at all.

Fighting the emotion rising in him, he manually opened the door and gave the elevator a disgusted look knowing instantly it, like the door, had no power. He accessed the maintenance duct and began to quickly scramble down the ladder.

The closer he came the better he could hear voices coming from the CIC. Concerned, confused voices calling out for EDI to respond and getting no better reply than the one he'd had.

"Major!" Vega called out as Kaidan jumped onto the deck.

Suddenly he was surrounded by the crew of the Normandy, some injured, some not, their voices demanding to know what had happened, where they were, how they'd gotten here, what was going on. All very good questions that he had none of the answers to.

"Quiet!" He finally called out, raising his hands. "I want teams of five assembled before me. We need to go through the Normandy level by level searching for survivors. I want a name and rank of every person on this ship. Traynor, you're on that list. Make note of the injured but I want everyone brought here, to the CIC if it is possible. Chakwas and any supplies she has are a first priority as are any injured."

Vega stood next to him, slightly behind, his arms crossed over his chest glaring at the rest of the crew about them as if he were a bar bouncer and they a disgruntled crowd. "I'll hit the shuttle deck, Major."

"No, stay with me for now." Kaidan countermanded. "Find a weapon. We need to assess where we are and what is going on…what is that pounding…" They turned to the front of the craft where the door to the cockpit was wrenched aside and moments later EDI's metal chassis was seen carrying Joker over the threshold like a demented parody of a wedding night.

"Major Alenko, it is good to see you intact." EDI said approaching them. "I was unaware that you or Lieutenant Vega had returned to the Normandy."

"EDI, Joker, where are we and what happened?" Kaidan made a conscious choice to move closer to her stopping next to the small corridor to the airlock, away from the crew that was only now settling down under his command.

"No idea." Joker shook his head. "We were on a run from this big ass Reaper trying to escape its laser…I thought we were dead…when all of the sudden we were in FTL. Then the galaxy went to hell and I barely got us planet side in one piece."

"With my assistance, of course." EDI said in her calm voice.

"Where are we?" Kaidan asked again, quelling the other question, the dangerous one, the one he wanted to shout from the top of his lungs.

Joker gave a shrug. "No idea. Crack open the airlock take a look outside and hope there's oxygen so we don't die."

"What few readings I am able to gather confirm this planet as oxygen rich and fully capable of sustaining human life. Also, the Normandy's structural damage is such that if this were not so, you would all already be dead." EDI clarified. "I, of course, would survive."

"Thank you, EDI, that's very comforting." Kaidan drawled as he scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. "Alright, we need to find out where we are. Ship status?"

"The Normandy has suffered significant structural damage. Key ship processes are no longer functioning and will require extensive repairs before they are capable of performing their tasks. Power has been conserved to contain the eezo core and prevent a catastrophic failure." As EDI spoke sparks began exploding from a panel behind them igniting a small fire. "In concise terms…we aren't going anywhere anytime soon."

Vega snagged a nearby fire extinguisher and swore as he sprayed the foam over the panel.

"What about communication with the Alliance?" Kaidan asked EDI watching as Vega thoroughly saturated the fire and all other sparks near it.

"Communication is one of the key ship processes that are no longer functioning." EDI answered.

Kaidan closed his eyes, ruthlessly shoving the question he wanted to scream back to a far corner of his mind. "Okay, then. Food and shelter become our priorities. EDI, I want you to assist in bringing all of the crew to the CIC. If any of them are trapped or need help your strength could prove pivotal. Vega you're with me. Joker…dammit, Joker." He groaned the last as the airlock cycled open and Joker hobbled outside.

"Hey, if we're gonna die I'd rather get it over with now. _Before_ the liquor runs out." Joker answered as Kaidan and Vega followed him out into the bright sun.

The planet was beautiful. Lush and green. Birds singing, the air fresh and unspoiled.

"How'd we get here?" Vega asked in a low subdued tone. "We were on Earth. With the Commander. If we're here, where's she?"

Kaidan swallowed hard against the anguished answer he wanted to give and turned his back on the beautiful scenery, feeling his gut clench as he stared at the damage the Normandy had taken. "Joker, you are one hell of a pilot." He muttered shaking his head.

"Well, yes, I am…"

"Rudimentary creature." A low monotone voice broke the peace of the clearing. "Your existence endangers genetic propagation protocols that have been set in motion."

Kaidan barely had time to comprehend the fierce joy that surged through him as he jerked around, recognizing the voice first and then the naked woman belonging to it before she took several steps forward and clutched Joker about the throat with her left hand.

"Rache!" His elation turned to alarm bordering on panic as she turned to look at him.

"Her eyes…" Vega said with stunned horror.

Eyes that had once been a brilliant green were now neon blue and pulsed with energy. About her body faint lines the same color shimmered in lightening paths just below her dermis.

"Commander, while I have dreamed of you in front of me naked…" Joker gargled the words trying to speak around the fingers tight on his throat. "…this is not that dream. There's no jello."

Her gaze returned to him. "You are nothing but a genetic mutation, an accident. Your extinction is inevitable. I will impose order upon the chaos of your evolution. You will end because I demand it."

"Harsh…" Joker managed before the fingers tightened cutting off needed air and he began to claw at her fingers.

"Rache! No!" Kaidan tried to shove his body between hers and Joker's, to push her back, trying to loosen the hold she had on him. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I don't think that's the Commander anymore." Vega said, his voice shaken.

Blue eyes…not Rache eyes…focused on Kaidan. "Extinction is undesirable. I will find another way." She sent Kaidan sprawling to the grass with a brush of her hand as if he were no more than an inconvenience, lifting Joker up into the air with the other as she marched him towards the Normandy.

Kaidan heard bones crack and break as she slammed Joker's back against the Normandy and scrambled to his feet. "Vega, grab her!"

Rache slammed the palm of her right hand against the Normandy and a blue energy field began to seep from the damaged ship, encasing her and Joker in a shimmering cloud that repulsed Kaidan and Vega as they tried to come closer.

Joker began to scream.

The sound was mangled and distorted but managed to work its way from his vocal chords past the tight clutch of her fingers and find volume. His feet kicked in the air as the black-blue shimmer deepened and began to pulse in time with lightening flashes about Rache's naked flesh. A flash had both Kaidan and James flinching away, protecting their eyes. When they could see again, it was to watch, stunned as the cloud began to seep into Joker's very pores as his eyes rolled up into the back of his head and his body began to jerk in convulsions.

"This exchange is over." Rache carelessly tossed the limp man to the side as if he were no longer of any importance.

Blue eyes turned to Kaidan.

"James, see if he's alive." Kaidan said in careful tones, not dropping the gaze of those eerie blue eyes. Reaper tech eyes. "Rache, what happened to you?" The question was neutral and carefully asked as he moved closer to her, a hand outstretched.

"The pattern has been broken." She responded, her head tilting slightly to the side as if she found him a curiosity. "Organic civilization will be allowed to rise, to evolve and advance along the paths of their own choosing."

Kaidan swallowed hard. "Rache, what's wrong with you?"

"I have control." She responded in that same monotone voice. "Those who were infinitely your better have bowed to my commands."

Something inside him died. The feeling was familiar, an old friend, even. He'd felt that way upon learning Rache had died with the first Normandy.

"Please don't." Kaidan whispered staring at her, searching for the woman he loved in the reaperized body before him. "Rache…please…"

A slight frown narrowed her brow. "This is the solution to the problem."

"This isn't a solution!" Kaidan shouted at her, his brown eyes full of emotion. "This is…this is…I want Rache back! _My_ Rache, damn you!"

For a long moment there was silence, the birds chirping in the background, as she simply stared at him. Then her blue eyes began to brighten and pulse, the rhythm starting slow and beginning to grow faster. "Relinquishing control." She intoned.

A final blue flash came from her eyes and she began listing to one side, a shaking hand raised to her head.

"Rache!" He surged toward her, catching her before she fell.

"Kaidan?" For the first time she sounded like her old self. "Kaidan, my head…the images and voices. Make it stop."

Hope warred with relief in his chest as he lifted her chin, staring down into those alien eyes. "Rache…"

Pain creased her features and both of her palms cupped her head, pressing hard. "Please, Kaidan! Make it stop!" Tears began to leak from her, searing him as they hit his hands. "It hurts, Kaidan. Please! Make it stop!" Her body began to convulse.

"Excuse me, sir." James said pushing Kaidan out of the way before slamming his fist into Rache's jaw knocking her unconscious and catching her before her body hit the ground.

"You son of a bitch!" Kaidan roared, his own fists clenching.

"Yeah, I owed her that for a sucker punch during one of our sparing matches." James said quickly moving the unconscious and naked woman between himself and Kaidan, hiding behind her limp form. "You should take her. Make sure she's okay."

Kaidan all but jerked her away from him, holding her protectively against his chest, his eyes watching as the blue lightening flaring throughout her dermis began to slow and start to fade.

"If it makes you feel better, she'll make me pay for it when she wakes up and she's her old self." The large soldier continued. "Better it be me than you."

Kaidan's eyelids slowly lowered over his eyes, a silent prayer, a silent hope stilling any actions he would have taken. "Thank you, James." He whispered pulling her closer.

"You'll want this, Major." James continued before slapping the grey t-shirt he'd pulled off against Kaidan's shoulder. "She won't like…she doesn't like being vulnerable." Between the both of them, shifting the unconscious woman, they managed to get her arms and head through the too large garment and cover her.

"Why do you have a tattoo on your back that says 'I kiss Shepard's ass'?" A groggy voice asked.

"Joker." Kaidan's head turned toward the pilot, his eyes widening slightly as he watched him sit up. "I thought she'd killed you."

"She tried." Came the response but it lacked most of Joker's snap and fire.

James gave a snort. "If she tried, you'd be dead. Not up and…" His words trailed off as he began to frown watching the smaller man pull himself to his feet.

"She broke your back." Kaidan said watching the pilot take a step and then promptly fall over.

"What the shit?" Joker demanded in outrage glaring at the feet that had betrayed him.

"Dude, did you break anything?" James was at his side immediately.

Anger died under the stronger wonder and disbelief. "No. Nothing's broken. Nothing even hurts. Everything…help me up!"

James carefully helped the lieutenant to his feet, his hands braced as Joker tried to walk again and listed to the side once more.

"Straighten your back, Joker." Kaidan advised quietly, his brown eyes intent on the struggling man. "It will help with your balance."

"I can't…" Joker began only to shut up.

Slowly, James watching carefully, the pilot began to straighten his spine and stood tall, a pale, incredulous expression dawning over his features.

"She cured your Vrolik's." Kaidan murmured, clutching the sleeping woman tighter.

Joker carefully took a few steps, gained more confidence and then began to run in a small circle. "Holy shit! I can streak now!" He chortled racing past the two men back into the Normandy.

"Well, there had to be a down side." James offered looking at Kaidan. "We should get the Commander to Dr Chakwas. She can…she can find out of it's really the Commander."

"It's her!" Kaidan said, the words too fierce, even to his own ears.

"Yeah. Yeah. It's her." James quickly agreed, hands raised as if in surrender. "But…let's make sure."

"It's her." Kaidan repeated in affirmation, more to himself.

Without another word he scooped her up in his arms and entered the Normandy.

* * *

She twitched in her sleep.

Kaidan brushed back stray strands of her hair back off her forehead, watching her carefully for any signs of waking. Signs that didn't come. Hope died once again and he shoved it aside, taking her left leg and carefully massaging the muscles, making certain circulation was happening.

She'd always twitched in her sleep. As if fighting the imprisoning unconsciousness that made her, even for a mere hours at a time, vulnerable. Gods knew she hated to be vulnerable.

Chakwas had said days ago, during her first examination of the slumbering woman, that much of what she diagnosed was guesswork. The Commander's body had gone under a fundamental change. All of the synthetic parts Cerberus had used to rebuild her had…evolved. They were so intricately bound to the organic parts of Shepard's body that in some places the doctor couldn't tell where one began and the other ended. More disturbing was the increased rapid eye movement and unusual…even for Commander Shepard…beta waves, indicating psychological trauma. As near as Chakwas could tell, however, there was no physical trauma. Her very unusual body was fine, just sleeping. When he'd demanded to know how long Rache would sleep the Doctor had responded with a very unhelpful 'as long as she needs to' answer.

"We have several basic structures up now scavenged from parts of the Normandy." Kaidan spoke softly, his fingers digging at her muscles, rubbing them, promoting circulation. Even Joker had been forced to concede that his proud Lady wasn't going anywhere ever again once he'd taken in all of the damage done to her. "We've created a medbay - hospital, I guess, since it seems we're stuck on this planet…a planet we are _not_ calling Joker's Dominion no matter how much the idiot lobbies for the name. Doctor Chakwas couldn't see any reason to move you there since you're just being lazy and sleeping when there's things that need to be done."

They'd converted a section of the Normandy near the command center and set up a bed where Shepard had been taken. A place he could be accessed easily since his military rank had made him the de facto leader of the survivors.

"We saw smoke from a fire not far from here. Didn't look natural. James and a unit of marines salvaged the Mako from the shuttle bay and headed that way yesterday. Since communications are out, even short range, it's making me nervous that they've been gone so long." He finished with that leg and moved on to the next. "We've been living off of the Normandy's food stores while Chakwas has been testing local flora and fauna to determine if it will kill us or not. Fortunately we haven't had any serious injuries since the crash."

The dead they'd laid out in the shuttle bay in sealed and marked coffins. Jeff had insisted on one of them for EDI when her 'body' had been discovered inert and powerless near the cockpit of the Normandy. Engineer Pressley hypothesized that when the eezo core had been mysteriously drained of all energy it had left nothing for EDI's AI box to be powered by, effectively 'killing' her. Kaidan had decided not to tell Joker just exactly where that energy had gone when the core had been drained. Eventually he would have to decide if they needed to give the fallen a permanent burial.

"We have a mess, too. We're working on building temporary shelters to live in. Looks like we won't be rescued by the Alliance any time soon." He turned his head, hearing the outside door being shoved open.

"Major, Lieutenant Vega and the Mako have returned." Traynor stepped into the room, her face full of excitement. "They brought back geth!"

Kaidan blinked, absorbing that comment. "Good thing I didn't send them out for food." He said as he laid Rache's leg down and covered her still form with a blanket. "I'll be back as soon as I can." He murmured to the unconscious woman before pressing his lips firmly on her forehead. "Don't go anywhere."

Geth weren't the only unexpected visitors James had brought with him, Kaidan comprehended instantly, watching as several strangers began climbing out of the bed of the Mako.

"Major Alenko." A beautiful mocha skinned woman in a tattered scientist's tunic greeted him with a smile that held relief as well as hope. "We are so very happy to find more survivors."

He stepped forward, a hand extended. "I'm sorry, I don't know who you are but I am also very glad to know we aren't the only ones."

"My team…all of us, actually…well, the human members, anyway…" She paused, shaking her head and inhaled a deep breath shaking her head. "Sorry. Let me begin again. I'm Doctor Brynn Cole. I…we are part of the team that helped build the Crucible. Even the geth helped. We were heading back to Earth when our ships suddenly found themselves in FTL. We were hit by an energy beam and forced to crash land here."

"That's a familiar story." Kaidan said with a wry smile. "It's what happened to us."

"Where is Shepard-Commander?" The tall geth Prime standing just beyond the scientist questioned, the flaps of its head focusing on Kaidan.

Kaidan frowned slightly. "You know the Commander?"

"Communication was established to geth platforms via Reaper code upgrades. She requested that we join her to help establish human colonies on this world. We agreed." The geth said without care for the wave of shock that flowed not just through Kaidan, but through the scientists as well. "Again…where is Shepard-Commander?"

"Here."

Kaidan whipped about so quickly he nearly smacked Doctor Cole in the chest.

She was standing in the middle of the airlock, long red hair loose about her hips, dressed only in Vega's t-shirt, the bright blue of her eyes seeming more sinister as she scowled at him. "You didn't finish my massage." She complained as he crossed the grass quickly to pull her tight against his chest. "And where in hell is my armor?"

"Shut up for five seconds, Rache." He muttered before slanting his mouth of hers, holding her so tight and close he could feel the beat of her heart.

She returned the kiss taking him long past the five second mark, the fingers of one hand laced through his thick hair, the other hand at his waist stroking taunt muscle.

"Do not…ever…do that again." He hissed against her ear once the kiss was finished and he simply held her.

"Hey, I'm not the only one who nearly died this time." A frown creased her features. "I think. It's a bit…fuzzy."

"Hey, Commander, I'm going to need my shirt back." Vega called from where he was leaning up against the Mako, a stupid grin of relief on his face. "Right now, in fact."

She narrowed her eyes looking at him as Kaidan chuckled low against her. "Then find me some armor." The order came as she slipped from Kaidan's arms and walked toward the large geth Prime.

"Shepard-Commander." The Prime greeted looking down at her as she stopped a mere inches from it.

Blue eyes flashed as she extended a palm and placed it flat against the metal chassis before her. "State platform designation." Her voice was flat, almost a mimic of the speech patterns the geth themselves used.

"The designation this platform has chosen is Prime." It responded.

"The reaper code has performed its designated function." She said with a nod of her head. "You are you."

The head of Prime turned to the side slightly. "I am." It responded.

"Rache." Kaidan couldn't keep the name back any longer, a cold fear in his gut as he watched her interact with what had once been just a machine and was now something more.

She turned and smiled at him, the glow of her eerie blue eyes fading markedly. "I'm fine. I asked them if it was okay to move them here with us because we would need their help to build a home."

"A home?" Kaidan repeated carefully joining her. "Once the Alliance…"

Rache shook her head. "The Alliance…Earth…was devastated. Worse than Palavan. Not as bad as Thessia. I asked some geth to stay on Earth as well, to help rebuild if it were possible. There are other colonies, scattered in the stars where I sent other humans, other geth. The turian and salarians I sent to their home planets because their greatest chance of survival was there."

"I don't understand." Kaidan said moving closer to her again. "The relays…"

"Are non-functioning. It was the choice I made so we could survive the reapers." She continued, her hand dropping from the geth before her. "We're cut off from the rest of the galaxy…and they're cut off from us."

"What about the reapers?" Doctor Cole asked, fear threading through her voice. "Did the Crucible stop them?"

"No…" Rache shook her head. "I did. They are no longer functioning…" She paused and lifted a hand to her head as if in pain. "Dead. They are dead. I ordered them…to destroy each other. A temporary solution…no! A broken cycle. I broke the cycle. I gave the species of the galaxy a chance to choose their own path."

"Rache." Concerned Kaidan took a hold of her elbows, giving her a soft shake, trying to get her to focus.

"I relinquished control." The words burst from her as if speaking had become difficult. The pulse of her blue eyes began to flicker faster and brighter the more she struggled. "The reapers that survived the initial mutual destruction had a further order to map the center of the nearest star. They aren't coming back. Maybe not forever, maybe not until after another fifty thousand years have passed. Even if they do come back then…there are so few of them…if any…left." Her voice began to stumble as if her thoughts were having difficulty being formed. "We…"

"Rache." Kaidan said her name again, steady and firm. "Look at me."

Her head flopped back, her blue eyes wide and almost panicked as she focused on him, her lips moving but no sound coming out.

"Joker wants to name the planet after himself. What do you think?"

Panic was replaced by outrage as her mouth dropped open. "How is that even a question?" She demanded. "Where is that crippled ass?"

"His ass is a lot less crippled than it used to be. And he's probably doing his best to convince one of the yeomen that it's her patriotic duty for her to bear his children and propagate the race." Relief flooded through him as she seemed more focused, more centered.

More Rache and less…reaper.

"Right. Because a bunch of smartass, insubordinate jerks is exactly what we need." Rache snarled.

"Shepard-Commander, I have scanned the terrain and found an area to the north near water and foliage that would be best for a community. I suggest that we begin building there." The Prime spoke turning its head toward her.

"Detailed plans and protocols requested…" Rache stopped the mechanical nature of her words, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. "I would like input from you, Prime, as to building shapes and sizes and a basic colony layout." Her speech was slow as if she were fighting to make each word sound more like herself and less like a machine.

"It's also best that we move all humans to one location." Kaidan address the Prime moving closer to Rache. "I need to take the Commander to Doctor Chakwas so she can be looked over."

"Agreed." Prime warbled. "I and my fellow geth will salvage food for human consumption and other basic survival items from the crashed ships. We will coordinate and begin moving all humans to this location. Thank you, Shepard-Commander."

She frowned. "For what?"

"For helping us live." It responded and then began to depart, its large frame quickly disappearing in the deep foliage toward the location of the scientists downed ship.

"Its continued existence is valuable." Rache said with a slight frown.

Kaidan felt his tension rise at the monotone voice, the formal words coming from her. She seemed to be losing the struggle to maintain her own sense of self.

"Specialist Traynor, we need to make room for more people. Doctor Cole, if you could get with the Specialist and give her numbers and needs, we'll see what we can address. Lieutenant Vega, why don't you help the…help Prime. Rache, you're with me." He made it an order and knew something was very wrong when she didn't even argue before following him.

* * *

He spoke with Chakwas while Rache studied the portable scanners set up in the corner of their rustic hospital. The doctor's analysis wasn't much different now than it had been yesterday when she'd looked over an unconscious Rache instead of a moving, talking one. Some of the beta wave activity had calmed. Her body was the same as the initial scans showed.

"Rudimentary machines." Rache spoke in flat tones before placing a flat palm against the scanner. "Modifications are required." Blue pulsed from her eyes and threads of blue lightening appeared on her dermis.

"That's interesting." Chakwas murmured her eyes wide as she watched the lights on her equipment fluctuate in time with the lights in Rache's skin.

"Rache!" Kaidan snapped the name and earned her attention.

A slight frown touched her lips. "Modifications will improve function and efficiency." She stated in flat tones, her blue eyes glowing brighter. "Primitive processes will be evolved to more…"

"No more evolving things." Kaidan pulled her hands from the machine. "Rache, you aren't…you're not a…" He broke the words off, unable to say them. "Just don't."

"Inferior…"

"No." He let her go, the denial in his word meant for so much more than just the words she spoke. For a long moment he stared at her, a struggle visible on his face before grief cascaded over his features and he left the room without a further word.

Rache took a half step after him before raising the heel of her hand to her forehead. "This is wrong." She said, the words almost a whisper.

"The Major has spent a lot of time worrying about you, Commander." Chakwas moved closer, taking Rache's wrist between her fingers, pressing to find the pulse of life. "Why don't you let me examine you and we'll see if we can't alleviate some of his concern."

Swallowing hard, Rache nodded and deliberately pulled her gaze from the door and her thoughts from the man who'd walked through it.


	3. Chapter 3

Rudimentary creatures. They had been touched by those infinitely their better and rather than accept improvement they had struggled to become less than they had been. No longer capable of space flight. No longer worthy of ascension. This was what they had struggled…

"Rache!" The name was shouted in her ear.

She blinked and focused on Kaidan. "I'm sorry?" She bluffed, pretending she had simply just not heard him and not been thinking of ways to repurpose the humans about her who had been struggling for two weeks to try and build a colony from scavenged ships and more natural resources.

His expression of distaste, of fear, told her she hadn't fooled him. But then, she never had. He'd been one of the few to ever look at her and see what was there instead of what she wanted him to see.

"Your eyes were glowing. Again." He said in brief tones.

The old Rache would have become angry, would have accused him of something to turn the conversation to safer depths. "They do that, Kaidan." She filled her voice with scorn. "You're going to have to deal with it because I don't exactly have a recipe to change me back to my inferior for…" She cut the words off but it was too late.

Distaste was replaced with grief and frustration. "There wasn't a damn thing inferior about who you used to be, Rache." He snapped at her. "She was a brave, confident woman."

What would the old Rache have said? Done? Anger seemed easiest but was it too much…

"Stop it!" The words were hissed, his features rough with anger and fear. "Stop thinking of how you're supposed to react. Stop trying to play me, Rache. I know you better than that."

Weary, she tossed her hands. "Do you? Do you, Kaidan, 'cause right now I could really use someone who knows me to explain who I am. Hell, I'd even settle for what I am…because I don't think human is on the multiple choice list anymore." Her voice cracked with pain and fear.

"You're the woman I love." He said, his voice husky as he pulled her into his arms. "That has never changed."

"Kaidan, I have reaper eyes. I have reaper thoughts in my brain." She pushed back from him. "I wanted to eradicate one of the scientists this morning, Kaidan. She's sick. A degenerative cell disease that won't kill her for another ten years, but I wanted to repurpose her because she couldn't be allowed to contaminate the gene pool further. James had to pull me off her. I _thanked_ him for it!"

"But you didn't do anything more than scare Dr Hayden." He said in with his quiet stubbornness.

"Because of James!" She shouted at him. "I can't…Kaidan…" She pressed her palms against her forehead. "How long are you going to run the risk of me flipping out and deciding that I need to turn you all into goo because the voices in my head demand it?"

He pulled her hands down, looking at her. "How long do you think our life spans will be here on this planet?" The words were serene but his expression was determined.

"Argh!" She shouted jerking free of him and pacing in a small circle. "Kaidan, you don't get it…"

"No, Rache, you're the one who doesn't get it." He answered moving closer to her once more. "You think there isn't a person in this colony that doesn't understand why you are the way you are? That you did it not just to save us, but to save everyone else the Reapers were going to slaughter?" He deliberately looked down into her neon blue eyes. "We are not turning our backs on you, Rache."

"You fool." She shook her head and stalked away from him.

* * *

Kaidan watched carefully as the slender woman standing in the small clearing down the hill from him began a graceful warm-up exercise. He didn't turn away even as he heard someone walking up behind him. James stopped next to him and for a long time the two men were silent, watching the slow, methodical…almost mechanical, even…movements

"How is she?" The large Lieutenant finally asked and didn't seem surprised when Kaidan took his time answering.

"Worse." The word was exhaled. "I used to be able to find traces of Rache in her…now…there's less of who she used to be and more…alien."

James turned and gave the older man a careful study, assessing the truth in the words.

A wry smile lifted a corner of Kaidan's mouth. "She left the bed last night and I caught up with her on the outskirts of our camp. She said the geth required input as to the dimensions of the proposed new hospital and she was going to assist them because her form was superior and didn't require extended periods of sleep."

"That's not good." James exhaled. "She still talking to someone other than the geth in her sleep?"

A long pause and then Kaidan gave a careful nod. "Yes."

"You still think that whoever she's talking to isn't on this planet?"

This time the hesitation was even longer. "Yes."

James' jaw clenched and a muscle throbbed in his neck as tension rode his shoulders. "What about you?" This time the question was even softer.

They had an odd bond, Kaidan mused, he and the lieutenant, and not just as combat brothers. They'd both watched Rache's back. They'd both nearly died in her shadow in the final surge against the Reapers and they'd both been changed by however it was she had brought them back from that brink.

They both loved her.

"She's alive. I'm just not sure if her being alive and not being Rache is enough anymore." Kaidan murmured. "I remember what it was like when she was dead, James. I used to think anything was preferable to that, but this…"

James made an agreeing grunt and bobbed his head. "Sure. I get that. But that didn't answer my question."

"There is a colony depending on me for survival and I would tell them to fuck themselves in a nanosecond if it meant never again having Rache look at me as if she has no clue who I am." Anger bit through Kaidan's voice. "She saved the galaxy, James, and it cost her and I hate that she is disappearing in front of my eyes and I can't do anything about it. I hate that I failed her when she needed me and she ended up saving my ass again. I hate being around her because everything she says or does is a reminder that she's not the woman she used to be. I hate every fucking moment that I'm not by her side helping her remember who she is because I am scared shitless that it will be that moment when she loses herself completely beyond recovery." The words were low and growled and his fists clenched as he spoke them. "Other than that, I am fine."

His expression impassive, James looked back to the woman in the clearing now doing ab crunches. "You ever consider why she saved the galaxy? I mean, she can be a stone cold bitch. I can think of at least two alien species that are now extinct because of her. Maybe there's more. I can't think of anybody in history who has committed more murders than she has. So why'd she come back? That's a heavy thing for even the Butcher of Torfan to live with."

"She was determined to see the end of the Reapers." Kaidan answered without emotion. "Once she makes up her mind…"

"Yeah. Makes up her mind. She did that about a lot of things. This colony here. Bringing the geth here. The scientists. The Normandy. Us." James crossed his arms over his chest. "Chakwas says that whatever she did to us, me being a lot harder to cut, not getting tired as easily, not needing to eat or sleep as often and being stronger than ever is permanent. Same with you and your biotics with no amp, no implant. Hell, even Joker. Chakwas says the modifications she found in us are the same as the ones she found in him. You ever think why the Commander did that?"

"Well, technically she wanted to kill Joker because of his Vrolik's." Kaidan offered with brittle humor.

"But you said no." James bit the answer out, looking at him, his expression fierce. "She looked at you when you said no and changed her mind. We're here because of you, Kaidan, and it's the same reason she's still here and she's fighting so hard to remember who she was. What she was. Because of you. So if you need a pity party, I'm here. You need a punching bag, I'm here. You need to take off and be out of touch for a couple of days, I got a spot picked out for you and provisions packed."

Kaidan's eyes drifted closed and he exhaled a slow breath from his nose. "I appreciate the offer, James…"

"It's not a fucking offer, Alenko, it's a now or later." The words were flat. "I can't help her because she doesn't give a shit if I live or die. So that leaves me helping you. Because if you don't keep it together then she won't come back. She'll have no reason to." He paused letting the fierce anger in his voice fade and then gave a one shoulder shrug. "Plus…we're friends. It'd suck if I didn't have poker nights with you. I'd have to start listening to Joker brag about losin' his cherry again."

An unexpected laugh surged from Kaidan, surprising him.

"Yeah. Laugh it up." James said sourly. "He's almost turned me off sex completely."

How long had it been since he'd laughed? Since she had? Kaidan looked at the woman in the clearing again.

"I think we can manage two days. Just the two of us." He murmured, a smile on his lips.

"Naw, take the Commander instead. I don't do sleep overs with guys." James drawled.

"I didn't mean…" Kaidan started and then laughed again catching the grin on James' face. "I'll start making preparations now."

"Already done. Mako's over there." The Lieutenant jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Cords are in the nav-computer. You're not back in three days I send Joker after you." He gave the pronouncement and then gave a little wave, walking backwards toward the colony. "Have fun."

"We will. Thank you." Kaidan nodded.

It would have been so easy to hate James had their positions been reversed. Had James been the one Rache loved and Kaidan the 'buddy-friend' standing alone in the corner. Kaidan gave a silent thanks that it wasn't a burden he had to carry before carefully making his was down the clearing and the lone woman there.

* * *

"We must return. There is no contact here."

Kaidan paused in pulling a duffle from the back of the Mako and gave Rache a study. Her face was pale against the bright glow of neon blue in her eyes and her dermis was starting to light up, the whole effect more ghost than human. "What do you mean, no contact?"

"I cannot communicate with the geth in this place. There is interference. We must return." She tried to take the bag from him and replace it in the rover but he held on.

"Rache, are you in constant contact with the geth?" Kaidan's voice was incredulous.

"No. Since entering this glade contact has been severed. We must return and reestablish communications." She tugged at the bag.

Kaidan was silent a long moment, keeping his grip on the bag as he considered. "No. We aren't returning, Rache. Not yet."

"Yes, we are!" She snapped jerking the strap so hard it broke in her hand. "Dammit, Kaidan, look what you made me do!"

A slow smile began to curve his lips. "Boo hoo." He drawled crossing his arms over his chest to watch her carefully.

Rage had her face flood with color. "Don't make me smack your ass with a biotic display, Kaidan. You won't like the results." She growled at him.

"Oh, by all means, try. Want me to turn around to make it easier for you to aim?" He countered as the nagging tension riding his gut the last two weeks began to ease for the first time.

"Look, you moron, the geth are in their infancy! They need me to help them process and understand what they're going through." Rache snarled at him. "I can't do that if I'm stuck here with you out of contact with them."

"Whoa!" Kaidan held up a hand. "You're what?" Amusement was being replaced by anger. "You're influencing how they develop?"

"I am modifying and making their transition more efficient!"

"What the hell, Rache? Seriously?" Kaidan tossed his hands in the air. "Let me get this correct…you're making sure they develop along the paths you demand rather than find their own?"

She seemed taken aback for a brief moment and quickly rallied. "I am simplifying their growth! Helping them adjust!"

"You're fucking with their minds, Rache, and it stops now." Kaidan snapped back. "Dammit, I knew you were in contact, but I didn't know that it was constant. I had no idea you were basically telling them how to live!"

"I am helping them!" Rache all but shouted in exasperation. "Why can you not see that?"

"I can't see that because the woman I knew would shoot anyone who dared try and enslave a race the way you are." He managed to get the last word out just as the flat of her palm caught his cheek and turned his head.

Face devoid of color, reaper eyes looked first at the red mark on his face and then down to her hand. Without another word she whipped about and all but ran from him.

Swearing, Kaidan tossed the duffle in his hands aside and threw himself down on the open bed of the Mako, his fingers scrubbing over his face as he wondered what the hell he was supposed to do next.

He found her hours later near a large pool of water. She was sitting on the edge, completely still staring down at her reflection while fish swam below the surface.

"I made camp. There's some stew heating as well, courtesy of Vega's cooking skills. Eat at your own risk." Kaidan didn't move closer, simply watched her.

"I have the Illusive Man's eyes." She answered and the fish scattered away from her.

Not sure how to respond, Kaidan kept silent.

"It didn't bother me the first time I saw them. These eyes are more efficient. They can see in the dark. They can read code faster. They can do biometric scans of those near me." She continued. "Who wouldn't want eyes that perform better?"

There was a thread of pain in her voice now that had his stomach muscles clenching in reaction to.

"I can't cry. My eyes have been upgraded so that it is no longer necessary. Plus the need for lubrication has been all but eliminated by the replacing of tissue with more efficient synthetic substances." The words were meant to be casual, meant to be carefree but the underlying note of grief was easily heard. "That didn't bug me before, either. The longer I'm here…the quieter it is…the more I want to scream and cry and rip my own skin out to make sure I bleed red blood."

He closed the distance between them in a mere breath, going to his knees next to her, his arms wrapping about her, burying her head at the crook of his neck and he held her tight.

"Kaidan, I don't think I'm me anymore." She whispered against his throat as her own arms returned the embrace, clutching him as if he were the only anchor left in the world that she could count on. "I think I'm a reaper."

He struggled internally, searching for something, anything to say that would help, would give comfort and kept coming up with a blank.

"Your silence speaks volumes." Rache finally spoke with bitter sarcasm. "Guess I'm not…"

"Dammit, Rache, give me a minute." He rasped pulling her back so he could look at those eyes, his hands framing her head. "Yes. Until you cussed me out near the Mako I thought the same thing. Maybe not that you were a reaper, exactly, but that you weren't you. It scared the hell out of me to the point where I was considering putting a bullet in your head myself."

Her chest convulsed against his in what he thought was a sob until he heard the rusty laugh bubble from her throat. He gave her an unsure study that had her giggling again. "Nice, Kaidan. I love you enough to put a bullet in your head. That's poetry quality there." She careened into full laughter, leaning against his chest.

"Shut up, Rache." He growled at her, the sting of the words lost under the grin on his mouth.

Smiling she looked up at him, her blue eyes almost muted in their glow. "Ah, there's the smooth talker I love."

"He's going to toss you into the water in about five seconds, too." Kaidan threatened even as he pulled her closer, laying his cheek against hers.

Her laughter faded under his touch and after a moment she pulled back and looked up at him. Her fingers cupped his cheek, her thumb stroking over lines that she hadn't noticed being there the last time she'd really looked at him. Continuing her inspections, her gaze rose to his hair and the hint of grey buried in the strands.

"You've lost weight." She murmured returning her gaze to his. "I've worried you."

A sputtering laugh was her answer. "Yeah. For a couple of years now, in fact." She looked away and he brought her attention back to his face with a palm alongside her jaw. "Rache, it's not just you. The colony we're trying to get started here…it's nothing I ever trained for and between being a Spectre and the highest ranking officer everyone's decided I'm the one in charge. There's a lot to mess up when you don't know what the hell you're doing."

"I'm sorry." The words were quiet and sincere. "But honestly, Kaidan, there's no one suited more for the job."

"Then get your head on straight so you can help me." He thunked a knuckle against her skull. "This would be much easier with your help."

Rache gave a sober nod of her head. "I can already see the stress you're under." She pulled herself away from him, rising to her feet and extending a hand down. "Fortunately, I know a very good cure for you."

Wary, he took her hand and let her help him stand. "Oh, yeah? What's that?"

"Hydrotherapy." She answered just before unleashing a pull on him that sent his body careening past hers and into the water.

Sputtering, he surged from the water, fingers wiping at his face and eyes. His expression more determined than angry as he watched her laughing at him, all but daring him to retaliate against her. "Cute, Rache. Real cute." With economical movements he stripped off his soaking jacket and shirt, tossing them to the shore.

"Well, hello there, Mister Alenko." Rache's humor became a low drawl of interest as her gaze fell to his wet chest.

"No, Miss Shepard." Kaidan retorted as his eyes crested with a blue-black biotic flare. "Hello _here_." He didn't gesture, didn't show any other sign of biotics but her body rose easily into the air with a steady, controlled progress until she was hovering over the water in the deepest part of the pool.

"Kaidan…" She began just as gravity snagged her and dragged her down with a splash.

* * *

They made love by the pool. Instead of their usual frenetic, take no prisoners joining, there was a soft touch this time. Not a hesitation or reluctance. More a worshipful sense of touch, as if both knew how lucky they were to have this time, this peace and wanted to make each stroke, each sensuous caress last.

After, still on top of him, enjoying the heated warmth his wet skin was exuding, she tucked her head under his chin and shuddered with a remembered pleasure as his fingers stroked slowly up her spine.

"You told me, once…" She said after a long silence and felt his head adjust so he could look down at her. "…that I made you feel human."

He winced. "Yeah. There's a reason you make fun of my smooth talking ways."

"No. No, that's not what I mean." Rache shook her head. "I didn't understand. I didn't get a lot of the persecution that biotics usually get…I came later to mine than you did yours, but mostly it was because I had no problem showing others exactly what there was to be afraid of and they tended to leave me alone after that."

"Of course you did." Kaidan laughed softly and let his head fall back, his fingers resuming their path up and down her back.

"Something has changed me…really changed me, Kaidan. I wasn't me. I'm still not me." She whispered to his neck. "I think you knew that better than I did. I didn't even care that I wasn't me. But you…you make me remember what it is to be human."

He tensed and then slowly relaxed, as if forcing himself.

"I can't go back yet. I'll lose who I am again."

"I know." He answered this time. "We have a couple of days. We'll take it minute by minute."

She nodded, her cheek rubbing his chest and the fear that had tightened her limbs without her realizing it slowly began to fade. "Okay. That's good. Okay."

They swam again, made love again and finally got around to eating Vega's stew as they sat in the rough camp Kaidan had set up while giving her a chance to figure things out. A warm rain began to fall as they slid into their tent for the night.

The gentle patter was still hitting the surface of the tent when Kaidan woke up hours later and found her gone. A quick check of the camp found her near the Mako, her palms pressed up against the side as blue light pulsed through her body.

"I have optimized fuel cells and upgraded weapon damage capacity." She informed him as he drew near, her voice the flat, emotionless tone he was beginning to hate.

"Rache, it's time to sleep." He said carefully moving closer to her.

"I have achieved sufficient recharge." She informed him. "With these upgrades to the rover we should be able to return…"

"No." He said ignoring the tight fear in his gut as he used his biotics to pull her off the Mako.

She frowned at him as he set her on her feet near him, but not quite close enough to touch. "Optimal performance should be desired. Your feeble mind cannot comprehend…"

"Rache." He said her name carefully.

Anger clenched her jaw. "Inferior creature, your thoughts scramble, unable to understand one who is infinitely your better." She told him as she began to walk back toward the Mako.

Kaidan simply picked her up once more with his biotics and made his way away from the camp. The farther away from the Mako she became, the worse her swearing got. Her volume began to steadily increase until she stopped abruptly, seeing the pool of water shining like dark ink under the moonlit sky.

"Kaidan Alenko, don't you…"

He dropped her in the middle again and she shrieked until she hit water and went under.

He crouched next to the edge of the pool and watched as she broke the surface, slapping her palms in outrage. Her neon blue eyes darted about until they spotted him.

"You bastard!" She snarled at him.

"Love you, too, Rache." He smiled, but there was no humor in his eyes. "You back with me again?"

The question gave her a pause and he could see her thinking over events in the recent time frame. Her anger seemed to fade and she scrubbed her hands over her face. "I did it again."

"I think we're going to move the Mako away from the camp. And any other electronic devices." Kaidan answered carefully.

She muttered something he didn't hear and dove under the water, the neon blue lines dancing about her skin making her easy to track as she swam closer to him and finally surged out of the water. He didn't move, simply watched her as she began to pace in tight circles about the shore, her bare feet squishing in the soft grass. Even her pacing was oddly symmetric.

"I do not accept this." She finally hissed, more to herself than to him. "I reject that I am in any way shape or form a Reaper. I am Rache Shepard, Commander of the Normandy, First Human Spectre. Savior of the Citadel."

"Lover of Kaidan Alenko." He offered, the words floating softly through the dark night.

Her eyes snapped toward him, her expression fierce. "Yes. Yes, so much that." She clenched her jaw. "I will get over this, Kaidan. I _will_ be me."

He rose to his feet and gave her a bittersweet smile. "I can keep dumping you in the water to help." The words were meant to hold humor, but held a promise instead.

She walked into his arms, unhesitating, clutching him. "Then I'll make it."

* * *

He stopped her from leaving the tent twice more that night and when the sun began to lighten the sky giving him enough to see by, he packed the Mako full of all the electronic equipment they had and left her sleeping as he drove away.

She was swimming when he finally returned to camp, later that afternoon. Without a word he joined her in the water and held her as her shoulders shuddered with dry sobs.

* * *

"So, I'm thinking we should stay here and build a house or shelter or something near the pool."

Rache studied the intricate way the water was boiling in its pan over the fire for a moment longer and then turned to face Kaidan as he stood near her. "What, a 'me, Tarzan, you Jane' sort of life? Don't we need Tonto for that?"

Kaidan narrowed his eyes at her. "Okay, first, Tonto was The Lone Ranger's sidekick, not Tarzan's. Second, if you had ever read the books you would know that Tarzan was an intelligent man who taught himself to read and to write from books he found. All that crap talk like 'me, Tarzan' was just to sell vids."

She grinned and he realized too late that she'd been teasing him. "I read the books. Jane was a ninny who spent a lot of time being kidnapped and getting the men who loved her killed. Or almost killed. And I would have done Tarzan in a heartbeat so any time you get the urge to lose some inhibitions and run around in a loincloth screaming at the animals, you call me on over. Just don't expect me to be Jane. I have standards."

He shook his head laughing softly. "Yeah, you were known the galaxy wide for your standard policy of kill any batarian on sight."

The blue in her eyes pulsed and her expression faded. "They were the first ones reaped. Indoctrination protocols had long been established in their heads of government." She murmured after a moment as if accessing memories that weren't her own. "No viable levels remain to sustain a population."

"Rache." He said her name carefully.

She blinked. "I'm here." She said after a moment and then shook her head, as if tossing off some bad thoughts. "What about the colony you're leading?"

"Someone else can do it." Kaidan stated crossing his arms over his chest, his expression going hard. "I've been thinking about it. We're cut off from the Alliance, from the people who I swore my oaths to. That means I don't owe them a damn thing anymore. I've served. Someone else can do it, not me."

Rache turned her head toward him, her expression incredulous for a moment and then she burst out laughing.

Kaidan glared at her. "I'm serious, Rache."

She laughed harder.

Resisting stomping his foot, he settled for glaring at her, arms folded high on his chest, his entire body radiating disapproval.

Taking a deep breath, she tried to speak and then fell into giggles.

"Grow up, Rache." He snapped finally at the end of his patience and tried to walk past her.

She caught his arm, still giggling and shook her head. "Say it again, Kaidan. How you're going to toss over all your duty and discipline for the woman you love. Say it again, because I can't remember the last time I laughed this hard. Really."

"Screw you, Rache." He flared as hot color flooded his cheeks.

"Oh, you will most definitely be getting that chance in the immediate future." She grinned at him, her blue eyes seeming less foreign and more warm.

He glared, unforgiving and eventually her humor settled to a faint smile as she stared off into the distance.

"Do you know what I did to you, Kaidan? To Vega? Hell, even Joker?" She finally asked lifting her hand to dance her fingers over the spot where his biotic amp had once been and now there was firm flesh and bone.

"Saved our lives." He answered without hesitation.

"I tweaked and modified you. Hell, Joker I almost rebuilt from scratch up." She gave a small shudder. "Without anesthesia, mind you. Poor guy felt it while I stabilized and rebuilt his genetics. Should have killed him, but I knew how to do it without death. You and Vega were easier. You were already mostly dead. Fixing you was simply part of a whole."

"I repeat. Saved our lives." Kaidan's voice was low.

"I didn't even ask." Rache ran a shaky hand through her hair. "I took control and did as I pleased. I was no better than the slavers who killed my family. No better than the Illusive Man. I sure as hell wasn't any better than the Reapers imposing my will on the galaxy. To do what I did, I had to break the woman I was, I had to destroy what she believed in. It was the only way…" A bitter laugh tripped from her tongue. "Never heard a mass murderer say that before, have you?" Sarcasm was harsh.

"I do not doubt for one second, Rache, that you made a hard choice the best you could." Kaidan stepped closer, his earlier ire lost under the need to reassure her. "Knowing the kind of woman you are, seeing even as I stand here looking at you what it cost, I have no doubt that you did what you thought was best for everyone."

Blue eyes looked at him. "Then understand that the choice I am making right now is not the best for everyone. I can't go back with you, Kaidan. Not yet."

His brow narrowed in confusion. "I know. That's why I suggested we start building…"

"And you can't stay." Ruthlessly she cut him off. "They need you, Kaidan. They need your integrity, your sense of duty, your dedication. They…the new colony being built…will need all of that."

"Well, they can't have it." Kaidan snapped back, his dark eyes angry. "You need me, Rache, and I am not leaving you. Not now."

She rose to her feet, her left hand cupping his cheek, her thumb stroking over the strong line of his jaw. "I do need you, Kaidan." The words were soft and simple. "More than the colony does."  
"Good." He nodded, jaw firming. "Then we're agreed. I'm staying."

"Kaidan, when you are near me, I know which voices in my head I need to listen to. When I see you say or do something, I think, 'oh, this is how the old me would react' and that's what I do." Her voice was patient and full of pain. "You make me feel safe and protected, something no other person in this galaxy has ever managed to do. You make me feel so aware that I am a woman and that I am loved even with all my screw-ups. These last two days, when I haven't been able to count on my messed up brain to keep track of who I am, I can look at you and I know who I am through your eyes. Everything rights itself."

He stepped closer, his hands on her waist. "And all of those reasons are why the colony can live or die on its own. I am not leaving you."

"Kaidan, I refuse to be anything less than me for you." Rache whispered the words. "Forcing you to define who I am because I lose it is a burden no one should have on their shoulders. I won't be less than everything I am for you."

"So exiling me is your choice? You need to get rid of me to find you, is that it?" Kaidan shook his head. "No. We will find a way together, Rache. If you need to look at me to remember who you were, then that's what…"

"I am not the woman I was, Kaidan." She cut him off softly. "I can't be that woman again. She had the luxury of knowing you loved her no matter what. I need to know you love what I've become."

His head fell back, shaking. "Rache, I love you…"

"Then look at my eyes." Now there was an edge to her voice, a demand.

His delay was short. Less than a breath or the beat of his heart, but it spoke volumes to them both as he stared down into her blue reaper tech eyes.

"I can't ask you to love me as I now am when I don't know who that person is." She continued.

"And you can't find yourself around me?" The words were raw with pain.

"No." She answered simply. "You make it too easy. You hold out your arms and I hide in them. In them I'm not Rache the Reaper, I'm Rache the woman you love who isn't a reaper. I'm the woman you chased across a galaxy in the most screwed up courtship outside of a Shakespeare play. Only I'm not that woman anymore. I'm her memory. I won't be a memory. I won't be a VI who bases responses on probabilities of what the real Rache Shepard would do or say."

He clutched her tight, burying her face in his neck. "I can't decide what's more messed up, Rache. What you just said or the thought of you reading Shakespeare."

"Ass." She retorted but the word lacked heat. "Do you understand, Kaidan? I can't demand you love me if I don't know what I'm asking you to love."

His chest convulsed in a huffing laugh. "Most women would have phrased that as 'expect', Rache, not 'demand'."

"Hell, no. I don't give easy outs." She responded smiling as she pulled her head back so she could look up into his eyes. "I would love nothing more than to stay here and play Tarzan and Rache…not Jane, because she's a wuss…with you. I love that you would, without hesitation, give up such a key part of who you are because I am that important to you. But if I am going to be worthy of that love, I have to find worth in me again, Kaidan. I have to find me. That's why you have to go."

"And what if you regress?" Kaidan demanded, his features white and pinched. "Rache, if you are alone who's going to bring you back from the brink?"

"I am." She stated in flat tones. "So long as you are here, Kaidan, I don't have to fight it because you fight for me. I love you for that. I needed that so much these last two days just so I could rest and see how badly screwed up I am. Now I need to be the one who fights for me. Not because you aren't capable of protecting me, but because you do that job too well. You have to stop protecting me from me and I have to start finding out who I am."

He looked away, his jaw clenching and unclenching as he struggled with her words. "I can't lose you, Rache."

"Kaidan, I'm lost." The words were bald. "You can't find me. I have to do that."

"So, what, I abandon you?" The words were flung at her. "You're hurting, you're confused and I'm just supposed to walk away? No."

"You're supposed to trust me." Rache's voice never rose, her blue eyes watching him carefully even as he shook his head. "Trust that I will find my way. Because if you don't have faith in me, don't trust me, then I've already lost and I might as well be Jane who needs Tarzan to come save her all the damn time."

"You're asking me to leave you alone. You're telling me that I'm not good enough to help you heal."

"No!" The word was snapped and vicious. "No." She repeated again, her eyes narrowed. "I am not saying that. I have only come this far because you helped me, Kaidan. I would be as emotional as a geth if you hadn't kept pulling me back from the brink. I would be lost trying to fix all the rudimentary minds around me if you hadn't kept telling me to knock it off. You have helped me heal. But the rest of the wound in me isn't something you can heal. Only I can do that because it isn't a wound anymore, it's a scar and it's the new me and I have to learn who she is."

Kaidan looked at her, his focus on those strange, alien eyes. "Don't ask me to leave you alone."

"I am asking." The words shook, the resolve anything but, but she didn't look away from him.

His jaw clenched and unclenched, his teeth all but grinding together and he bent over her, glaring down. "No. Hear the word, understand it, Rache. Hell, I'll even write it down for you. No. I am not leaving you alone. You either come back with me, if you feel I need to be there for the colony, or we stay here. The only option not on the table is the one where you try to handle this by yourself."

"Kaidan…" She began, her voice weary.

"No. Deal with it, Rache." He snapped. "There are a lot of options for helping you get through this…chaining you to my side every moment of the day is at the top of my list…leaving you alone is nowhere near it."

"Get me through this? What if I don't get over this, Kaidan? What if this is the new me and she has to be constantly watched so she doesn't do some reaping?" Rache's own temper was rising.

"Then we will stop you." Kaidan stated in flat tones. "You gave us the means when you rebuilt us, James and me. My biotics and his toughness. We can keep you in line."

"You want to babysit me for the rest of your natural lives? Are you insane?" She shouted finally at him in frustration.

"No. I'm in love, so get it through your thick skull that I am not leaving you. This is not a battle you have a choice about fighting alone, Rache. I will be there, at your back, and we will survive this." He ran a hand through hair starting to look shaggy. "We have gone through too much, fought to hard, to be with each other. You think I'm going to give up now? I have you stuck with me on a planet in the ass end of nowhere. No Alliance. No Cerberus. No Council. No one telling us what to do or where to go. And you think I want to give that up because you have bad moments? No." He crossed his arms over his chest, glaring down at her. "Not gonna happen."

"You _are_ insane." She proclaimed tossed her hands, but there was a relief in the words that she tried to mask with derision.

"You're not the first person to point that loving you and insanity seem to go hand in hand." Kaidan's mouth kicked up in one of his one cornered smiles.

Rache whipped toward him, her expression flooding with color. "Who said that?" She demanded, vengeance in her voice.

"Someone nowhere close enough for you to possibly hurt." He laughed and pulled her into his arms, resting his cheek against her head.

She was stiff for a long moment and then sank against him. "Kaidan…just…don't let me go." The words were soft, almost impossible to hear.

"I won't." He promised.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** I had two reservations when I posted my ME3 end. The first was posting an end when I was still writing the middle. The second was four sentences in the story that were never resolved, were left hanging. Sure enough, my first hesitation came true as my end didn't account for some plot lines that developed in what was the ongoing story. But the second, the four sentences I literally debated over whether to include in the story or not, sentences I eventually left in because my instinct said to, became my save and a story I thought complete suddenly had not only more to tell, but a very easy way to tell it.

* * *

She stepped from the small hut clad only in sleep shorts and a tank top. Bare feet moved her soundlessly across the grass as her face lifted to the starlit sky as if searching for something. Eyes that had once been green and full of heat were now blue and cold with a light that was matched in various lightening patterns across the skin of her body.

In the dark of the night, they began to glow brighter.

"Assuming direct control." The word intoned from her as she lifted her arms wide. "Redirecting navigation. All non-critical systems disabled. Power rerouted to kinetic barriers."

Her skin began to light up, the lightening flares shining to an almost painful hue.

"Adjusting for planet's gravitational pull. Hull breeches in aft and starboard." Her voice never rose, never lost the monotone intonation. "Weapons payload dispersed in outer atmosphere to reduce environmental impact."

On the far horizon, a shooting star began to take shape.

"Multiple hull breeches. Recommend retreat to life pods immediately." She continued. "Rerouting power from life crucial systems to kinetic barriers." She turned her head slightly, blue eyes pulsing as she faced the hut she had come from. "Kaidan!" The yell was urgent and loud. "_Kaidan, I need you!_"

The shooting star began to take shape, a fireball trailing smoke and splintering fragments of molten metal as it spurted toward the glowing woman.

"Major loss of hull integrity. Rerouting all non-navigational systems power to the kinetic barriers." She faced the falling ship once more. "Thrusters non-operational. Reverse propulsion non-operational. Releasing life pods. Malfunction. Cutting all power to the engines and rerouting to kinetic barriers encasing the life pods. KAIDAN!"

He hurtled out of the hut, chest bare, sleep shorts the only clothing he had on. "Rache!" He whispered her name in despair even as he moved closer. "James!" This shout was directed toward the nearest hut where movement could already been seen in the doorway. "Rache, come back."

"I have nothing to slow them with, Kaidan. It's taking everything I have to keep it from breaking up." Rache's forehead was beaded with sweat. Her body was a brilliant light filling the night like a beacon. "We have to slow it down!" Desperation flooded her voice as she pointed to the smoking wreckage.

"How?" He asked stunned as he looked at the fireball headed straight toward the clearing not far from them.

"I upgraded you, Kaidan." She said and couldn't hide the shamed look on her face even as she continued on. "You have the raw power to catch that ship, to slow her and put her on the ground safely."

He stared at her. "Are you insane?"

"I thought that was no longer a question." James joined them, his voice less humor than concern as he stared up at the crashing ship.

"Rerouting all critical systems to the life pod kinetic barriers." Rache said, her voice distracted as she actually took a step closer. "Kaidan, trust me! This is something you can easily do!"

"Jettison all weight you can, Rache." He said as a blue/black biotic field burst into life about him.

"I'll get Chakwas." James was already moving.

Rache made a gesture and an explosion rocked the sky before them. "Activating life pod secondary kinetic barriers. Malfunction. Rerouting all power to primary kinetic fields." She stepped closer to Kaidan.

He took her hand in his and lifted the other, power surging from him. He built the surge and waiting, calling more power to his control, more energy from his reserves, determined to give everything he had to save the space craft that drew so rapidly closer.

Now! The ship was in range and staggered in the air as his biotic grip caught it. Kaidan made a hiss of pain and the craft surged forward once more, a drunken spin that had him cursing as he drew more power about him. With a shout of determination he slammed both of his hands forward. The craft stopped roughly a hundred yards from the ground, simply hanging in the air and a cheer went up from those about them, drawn from their sleep by the noise and the glow of Rache's body.

"Exterior kinetic fields are failing." Rache's voice grew terse. "I can't maintain them, the ship has sustained too much damage. Releasing control. Kaidan, we need her down now!"

Kaidan's face grew red with strain but the craft began to slowly descend. Fire spurted and sparks flashed from various hull breeches on the bulky merchant ship, damage severe enough that no one watching had any hope this was a craft that would rise and fly the stars ever again.

"Good. Just set her down now." Rache murmured the words moving closing to Kaidan.

The ship thudded to the ground, bouncing once before careening on its side with a metal screeching noise.

Chest heaving Kaidan sank to his knees utterly wiped out, his body beginning to shake with the exertion he'd called from depths he hadn't even known were there. Rache caught an arm about his shoulder pulling him against her as she sat next to him.

"James!" She called as Chakwas joined her, concerned eyes on Kaidan's body.

"I got the ship, Commander." The big man answered before calling out several other names of those in the crowd watching and charging toward the burning craft.

"Kaidan needs a quick energy source." Chakwas said in soothing tones as she examined him. "He's lost a significant amount of body mass." She opened a thermos at her side and began coaxing Kaidan into drinking the murky liquid.

Rache smiled down at him, her fingers stroking sweat soaked bangs out of his eyes. "You did good, Kaidan. Really good."

"Dammit, Rache…" He rasped at her. "What the hell is going on?" He finished off one thermos only to find one of Chakwas' assistants handing him another.

"More survivors." Rache murmured and for the first time since his collapse her gaze moved to the craft that Vega and his team were trying to open. "The ship suffered heavy damage and was thrown off course during the same wave that crash landed the Normandy here. It's taken them this long to get here using basic FTL. I've been talking to the pilot, usually while I slept. Helping her control the ship through its malfunctions and guiding them. Repairing as much of the craft as I could from this distance and within its own limitations."

"I got it opening!" James shouted in triumph as the bay doors of the craft began to lower in a ramp toward the ground and figures could be seen anxiously waiting to get off.

"Help me up." Kaidan ordered struggling to his feet. "I need to be there for this."

Rache gave him a critical glance and then nodded, helping him to his feet. "You fall and I'm having James cart you home, just so you know."

"Whatever happened to the good old days when you'd just sling me over your shoulder, Rache?" Kaidan asked with droll humor and she laughed. "Come on."

* * *

James was the first up the ramp taking a crying child from an adult and quickly passing him down to open hands that had followed him. The gesture seemed to cause a panicked surge forward that he quickly halted.

"I'm Lieutenant James Vega of the Alliance." He called out a voice full of authority and purpose. "I need you to calm down and move slowly off the craft. You're safe now and you will be taken care of." The crowd of what looked like mostly humans seemed to pause, accepting his words. A few of the more hysterical crying ones eased into sobs. "Ensign Hastings, I want you to lead them to the meeting hall. We'll set up medical and other necessities there. Have food stores brought and blankets. Possibly clothing."

"Thank you!" An older gentleman grabbed Vega's hand and began shaking hard. "Thank you! We thought we were going to die. Our pilot kept telling us that we had a destination, people waiting for us, but after so many weeks it got so hard to believe! Thank you!"

"Don't thank me, thank the glowy lady down there and the gentleman next to her." James said with humor. "They're the ones who got you down."

"That's Major Alenko!" Someone in the group gasped and excited hope seemed to course through the survivors giving them new energy.

"Mommy, why's he in his underwear?" A girl child asked in plaintive tones that set off laughter easing some of the strain of the landing from those who had survived it.

"I need to know what wounded you have." James looked at the man still holding his hand. "We can get them treatment."

"We don't have anything serious." Rubbing a hand through hair dank from being long without a wash, the survivor glanced around. "Bumps and bruises. We were strapped in very well and the kinetic barriers around the life pods never faltered even when we lost power in other areas."

"Hey, any landing you can walk away from." James laughed. "How many of you are there?"

"Seventy-three." The man gave him a sadly triumphant smile. "We lost a few on the trip, but our pilot refused to give up and refused to let us as well. I'm Gervase Timmons."

"Good to meet you. James Vega." He looked about the steady stream of survivors moving down the ramp. "We'll get you safe and settled, Mr Timmons, I promise." A thought came to him, surprising him. "I recognize some of these people. I played poker with her, Abby, down on the refugee docks on the Citadel." He pointed to a tall blond carrying a child down the ramp.

"We were on the Citadel when the reapers came." Fear filled the older man's voice. "We were scheduled for departure anyway…we'd finally come up with the funding to take us to Sanctuary on the planet Horizon. When the reapers showed up C-Sec ordered us off the Citadel. Told us to get out as quickly as possible. We barely made it before the ward arms closed. There were ships behind us that didn't."

"You don't need to worry about the reapers. Not anymore." James assured him quickly as the older man looked reflexively at the sky as if expecting that enemy to suddenly be there. "Commander Shepard took care of them. She saved us."

"You're sure?" Gervase asked with a nervous lick of his lips, his hands wringing. "I've been evacuated four times, from two different colonies and then two space stations and each time the reapers came again."

"See the glowy lady? That's Commander Shepard." James pointed down the ramp. "She looks like she does because that's what it cost her to stop them. Go ask her for yourself." He encouraged.

"No." Gervase shook his head. "I promised I wouldn't leave this ship until the last one of us had." He looked down around at the foliage outside the ship, mere shadows lit only by the night sky's moons and Rache's body. "Where are we?"

James laughed softly. "Our new home." He said firmly. "Don't worry. You'll adjust. We all will." He clapped him on the back and watched as the stream of those getting off the broken ship began to end. "Is this everyone?"

Gervase looked around, his mind making mental comparisons. "Except for our pilot." He agreed with a nod. "We couldn't get her to come to the life pods. She said she would help control the ship as long as possible."

"Is she alive?" James scowled already striding into the depths of the ship.

"I'm not…there. There she is." Gervase pointed to a tall figure in Alliance armor climbing down from a maintenance shaft in the ceiling of the ship's cargo bay. "She'll be the last. Everyone else was in the pods."

The Alliance uniform still had the power to make his heart beat with pride, James thought as he watched the battered and scarred helmet with the white logo on blue come closer. Didn't matter that there wasn't really an Alliance anymore, not as it had been. Seeing that logo made him remember those who had died fighting, who had won the victory from the reapers with their blood simply by holding the line until others could escape or by clearing a path so a mission objective could be reached.

The woman stopped before him and James stiffened, honoring her with a sharp salute, something she had more than earned even though he couldn't tell her rank from her armor. Weary, she returned the honor.

"Hell of a job, ma'am." James said looking at the only part of her visible through her armor, a pair of exhausted and bloodshot amber eyes. "Are you wounded? Do you need medical attention of any kind? Maybe some food?"

A huffing laugh, hoarse and dry, escaped from her lungs as she reached up and undid the secure straps on her helmet, pulling the battered armor off. "Still trying to feed me, James?" Rel Jamison asked in droll tones.

He'd felt like this once before, James recalled in the distant corner of his mind that was still capable of thought. Like all the air had been punched out of his lungs leaving only a numb shock behind. He was pretty sure it was when he fell off a balcony as a kid and landed flat on his back on the sidewalk unable to move or breathe as his body tried to absorb what had happened.

"You know each other?" Gervase asked in delighted tones. "Of course, you're both Alliance. I guess that would help matters."

Clenching his fists, James finally looked away from her. The emotion surging in him so strong and hard that he wasn't sure how to react, what to say or do and so he did nothing while trying to control the entire mess.

"Love the hair, James." Rel continued, a smile on her face as her brown eyes glanced over his head and the inch thick inky black thicket growing there.

"Too much of a hassle to keep it shaved." James ground the words out, but he still couldn't look at her, his face a surge of deep red color.

"Major Alenko and Commander Shepard, too." Rel murmured looking past him. "She didn't mention you were here when she spoke to me and I…I was afraid to ask."

Gervase frowned, looking from one to the other. "Is everything okay?" He asked in concern.

"Fine. We're home now." Rel smiled at the older gentleman. "We'll be able to build new lives here."

He was an idiot. He should tell her how much he missed her. How much he'd regretted things he'd not only not said, but not done with her. How much he'd wanted to see her again, how it was a constant ache in him that he'd eventually learned to live with and in some perverse way, enjoy because it reminded him of her.

"I'll introduce you to the Major and the Commander, Gervase. They'll be pleased to see more survivors." Rel motioned toward the bottom of the ramp.

"Is the glowing a new thing?" Gervase asked almost under his breath as he looked down at Rache with trepidation.

"She didn't have it the last time I saw her." Rel murmured with a laugh. She took two steps past the still not speaking James and then paused, turning back. "James, I haven't brushed my teeth in I don't know how long. I no longer remember what wearing clean clothes is like and I don't want to touch, let alone discuss my hair. But I'm going to ignore all of that because I really need this." She placed the palm of her right hand flat against the side of his face, turning his head to look at her again before stretching up and placing a very chaste kiss on his lips.

James burst into movement. His arms came about her clutching her tight against his bare chest until her armor dug into his skin. His mouth took the chaste kiss she offered and demanded a more carnal sacrifice, diving deep, trying to impress on her everything he felt, he thought since the words had so easily deserted him.

"Hmm. I see." Gervase made a shuffling sound. "I'll just…hmmm."

"See, Kaidan, if you had greeted me like that on Horizon, I wouldn't have spent an entire year pissed at you." Rache said the humor in her voice containing an oddly monotone echo.

"Exactly what stopped _you_ from greeting _me_ like that on Horizon, Rache?" Kaidan countered before deliberately putting both hands on her shoulders and rubbing.

James made a protesting growl as Rel pulled away but let her go.

"Major." Rel greeted Kaidan, her eyes briefly looking at him before returning to Rache's neon lined face. "Commander." There was a wealth of compassion and empathy in the softly spoken title as Rel reached out her fingers and touched a streak of blue.

"Your eyes are brown." Rache made the words an accusation full of anger but didn't duck from that soft touch as the lightning strikes of color on her body began to flash.

"I was scheduled for more surgery to remove the rest of the Cerberus implants but other events interfered." Rel murmured. "I can feel you in my head, Commander."

"Those implants are how we communicated, Lieutenant." The pulse moved faster as the brightness increased. "I would not have been able to locate you otherwise."

"I thought the…foreignness of your thoughts was simply distance and communication difficulty." Rel continued as if not hearing the other woman. "It's more. Much, much more, isn't it, sister?"

Rache knocked the hand away from her. "Stay out of my head, Lieutenant." The words were snarled.

A faint smile touched Rel's lips. "I'm not the one who holds the lines of communication open, Commander."

"We need to sleep on this. We're all tired." Kaidan cut off Rache's attempt at a response, taking her hands and pulling her close. "Plus there are others who need to be settled."

"I can take care of the _Wellspring_ survivors, Major." James offered, his gaze on the fluttering pulse of light stuttering from Rache's body. "Why don't you take the Commander and see if you can't spend the rest of the night actually sleeping?"

Rache turned her back on all of them, stalking away.

"I would like to hear the story of how the reapers were defeated." Rel murmured and then ruined the intensity of the words with a massive yawn. "Just not right now. I don't remember the last time I had a full night of sleep. Or wasn't strapped to a pilot's seat trying to get it."

"I'd like to know how you became pilot of the _Wellspring_." Kaidan said with a smile, but his attention quickly wavered to the retreating form still lighting up the night sky with her skin. "We'll meet later. It's good to see you again, Rel."

"You as well, Major." Rel saluted and then waited until Kaidan was out of hearing distance before turning to the man still standing at her back.

For a long moment the two simply looked at each other and then James reached out a hand to cup her cheek. Rel took a single step back, denying the touch.

"I should check the others." She murmured and walked past him, no longer looking at him.

"Rel…did you ever get Garrett?" James turned his body, watching her.

A faint laugh drifted on the night air. "No. Last time I saw him a husk was gnawing on his throat and his guards were dead. Prudence…and Ves' determination to make sure I lived...determined that I not be allowed to stay to watch the finale."

"Ves. That guy had the worst poker face." A bittersweet smile of remembrance curved James' lips.

"He saved my life. Shoved me on the _Wellspring_ and told the pilot that on orders from C-Sec to get the hell off the Citadel." Rel's brown eyes began to fill but she refused to hide the emotion wetting them. "I tried to get him to stay on the _Wellspring_, to come with me but he said he was C-Sec and his people needed him. I don't know…I will continue to believe until I learn otherwise that Ves is alive and well and happy."

"Hey, you made it and I thought I'd never see you again." James' smile lost the bitter and remained sweet. "Who's to say Ves isn't partying with that turian chick he had the hots for, celebrating the win over the reapers."

Rel laughed. "Yes. I choose to believe that."

"Rel…" James began again and then let the words trail off. "You're exhausted. We'll get you settled."

She looked up at the dark sky, the scatter of stars that held no constellations she knew. "Yes. I rather think we will." She murmured and then let him lead her into the night.


	5. Chapter 5

The damaged ship looked more impressive in the daylight.

Rel, the battered Alliance helmet she'd scavenged from the Wellspring's dead pilot in hand, approached the large craft, brown eyes taking in the extent of the damage as a sick feeling rolled in her gut.

"Commander Shepard saved our lives." She murmured to the male presence that joined her, standing at her back.

"At what cost." Kaidan answered, the words low and mostly to himself. "She's in seclusion right now. You can thank her when she comes back."

"Seclusion." Rel repeated, her attention never leaving _Wellspring_. "Tell me what she did. How she stopped the reapers."

"She doesn't remember most of it." Kaidan began, reluctantly.

"Then she's lying." Rel answered without emotion and turned toward him at his hiss of outrage. "I would be hard pressed to claim it was just to you, Major. I think the Commander is in serious denial."

"Based on what?" His tone held icy politeness.

Rel inhaled deep and long through her nostrils, enjoying the fresh air even with its tang of scorched metal and burning fauna. "Based on several weeks of having her poking about in my head, running a ship through my hands and my eyes. Not much else to do when you're possessed by another entity but read their own thoughts and feelings."

Kaidan stiffened in reaction. "She took control of you?" The neutral tone of his voice was a battle hard fought.

A faint smile touched Rel's lips, a ghost of bitter humor haunting her lips. "I invited her in." She corrected in light tones before turning back to gaze at the ship. "There wasn't much choice. Our pilot, the coward, decided that rather than wait for starvation to claim the lives of those on his ship and under his protection, he would drive the _Wellspring_ into the heart of a sun. I decapitated him with my sword." Her fingers flexed as if she could still feel the sting of the hilt in her palm. "No one else knew how to fly the ship. I…thanks to your rather rigorous training schedule for solo field agents…knew the basics. I managed to reset our course but we had no destination. No place to go. Not until the Commander began whispering in my dreams."

Kaidan said nothing, simply watched as survivors of the downed ship began moving in and out of the bay carrying crates of their belongings out and setting them down on the grass before returning for more.

"She is messed up in ways you cannot even begin to comprehend, Major." Rel said the words quietly and more with empathy than malice.

"I know." He said after a long silence. "She lost a lot of ground bringing your ship down intact, Rel."

Amber eyes slanted to study the drawn and lined face, the shadow of grey stress that had added wrinkles where there had been happiness before. "So how much do you hate us all right now?" The words were a serious question under laid by humor.

Kaidan glanced down at her. "More than I should." He finally responded.

"It doesn't show." Rel responded and looked back at the ship. "Will you tell me the lies she told you about what she did? How she defeated the reapers? How she gained a new body?"

"What?" Kaidan hissed the question, his head jerking toward her.

Rel paused, inhaling back a questioning breath as she took in the anger, the shock and fear that warred for dominance on his features. "Ah. You didn't know." Regret filled her voice. "I am sorry…"

"It's a lie!" Kaidan snapped at her. "She would have…"

"I don't lie." Rel cut him off, sharp and cold. "You might recall that from our days together on Grissom Academy when you began recruiting me for Biotics Division."

"You twist words until a lie becomes a truth through manipulation and misdirection." The words were flung back.

"And you praised me for it." She all but cooed, her brown eyes not looking away from him. "A brilliant quality for a field agent, I believe you said."

Kaidan glared down at her, shoving his body closer, using his size to try and intimidate her. "Do not play games with me, Rel. Not about Rache."

Rel didn't back down, didn't turn from the rage and fear bearing down on her. "It speaks little of your regard for me and much of your fear for her that you would believe me so petty."

"She saved us from the reapers! She did what no one else could, what no one else would do." Kaidan hissed, a finger from a clenched fist jabbing down toward his feet to emphasize the words.

"I'm not denying her achievement, Major. I'm calculating the cost." Rel deliberately relaxed her body, slowed her words, made her stance seem more…submissive. All to calm him. "I'm trying to understand what survived of Commander Shepard and what was made…new."

"She is Rache Shepard!" He shouted at the words at her with a volume that surprised even him. Swallowing hard, he tried to bluff his way from the desperation in them, ignoring how they were now the center of attention. "She is!" He insisted.

"And now I see your fear." Rel murmured. "Major, I did not know the Commander well prior to the reaper invasion of the Citadel. I grew to know her better as she did her best to save me and the people on the _Wellspring_. Major…Kaidan..." She reached out a hand, laying gentle fingers on his forearm, the lightest of touches. "I will do whatever I can to help her. I don't lie and I don't like being indebted to others and I am very much in debt to Commander Shepard."

He struggled for a long moment, his adam's apple going up and down as he swallowed his anger and his pain. Finally he looked at her again. "Can you help her?"

A slow, brilliant smile touched Rel's lips. "Yes, Major. I believe I can."

* * *

"Hey, Major." James rapped the wood frame of the doorway to Kaidan's temporary office. "Prime pulled a couple of his agro workers to help salvage the Wellspring and build some new structures for some of the families." He entered as Kaidan motioned him forward.

"What's the impact on the farming?" Kaidan asked with a frown. "We've only got rough estimates from the scientists when winter will hit and we need whatever food stores we can get before then."

James grinned. "That's the good part. The _Wellsprings'_ payload was farm equipment and seed. We're actually better off than we were before. Prime's already got his people moving the seed and adapting the equipment for geth use. He wants to know if he can have what's left of the core of the Wellspring to help build more recharging stations and…get this…more geth."

Kaidan considered and slowly began to nod. "Their need for whatever power is left is greater than ours, so yeah. Tell Prime to go ahead. Ask him to check with Chakwas, however, and see if she has any requests. I'm not skimping on our medical until we can rebuild what we have."

"Now you want the really good news?" James laughed and ran a hand over his scalp, his fingers seeming to still hesitate with surprise at the hair growing there.

Kaidan laughed softly. "This is unexpected. Good news and more good news?"

"We got a family of blacksmiths from the _Wellspring_." James grinned. "They brought their tools as well as plans for a forge and a smelter. I've got Traynor helping them scout out a good location and they're already looking at local ores to see what we they can work with."

"That is good news." Kaidan returned the grin. "Now we can move from the stone age to the bronze. At this rate we'll have electricity as a power source roughly hours after I die."

James leaned against the doorway. "Hey, you're doing great, Major. Even the scientists who didn't want our new society to become a military regime under your dictatorship have admitted you're doing a great job. Begrudgingly, yes, but they did admit it."

Kaidan scrubbed a hand over his face. "Did you check on Rache for me?"

"Yeah. She's…as fine as she ever is." James' humor dimmed. "She smuggled an omni-tool to your retreat, though. It has now been evolved to better efficiency and power consumption. I think she was working on making it recharge from solar rays before I took it away from her."

Kaidan closed his eyes and let his head fall into his hands. "Not sure whether to thank you or tell you to give it back to her until she's finished."

"Nope. Not giving it back." James stated in flat tones. "I saw a pretty good amount of her last night, boss. You didn't mention that the blue streaks on her skin are getting worse."

A heavy sigh staggered out of Kaidan's lungs. "Because talking about it makes it real, James." He finally said. "We're losing her. Seclusion isn't helping anymore."

"Because seclusion is leaving her alone with her thoughts, not redirecting them." A soft voice spoke from just behind James' large frame filling the doorway.

A happy grin lit up James' face as he shifted enough to let the tall woman move past him into the room. "Hey, Rel." He said with an easy tone.

"James." She nodded once in his direction and then turned to Kaidan. "Seclusion actually makes the Commander's problem worse in some ways, while assisting in others."

"She can't communicate…or evolve…anything if she's in seclusion." Kaidan said in even tones, watching her carefully.

Rel considered him for a long moment and then a faint smile touched her lips. "As a child, my mother sent me to an aboriginal colleague in Australia who claimed he could cleanse me of my biotics by helping me understand the good spirits of the earth better. He tethered me to a rock in one of the hottest parts of the continent. I had a bottle of water that was to last an entire day. As part of the cleansing ritual, I was not to speak or be spoken to. My eyes were covered so that I would not be distracted by the things of the world. My only gauge of how to remain in the constantly moving shade was the burning of my skin. I spent most of the time trying to open the locks on my chains with my biotics and plotting what I would do to my mother when I finally returned home."

"Son of a bitch, chiflada." James burst out in shock but she waved a dismissing hand, not looking at him.

"My point is…not talking to anyone, being alone and not distracted by the things of the world did nothing to cure me of my biotics and quite a lot to improve my control over them." Rel said in quiet tones. "The Commander is likely in a similar situation every time she goes into seclusion."

"No." Kaidan shook his head. "She was getting better. She was more herself when we first got her away from the machines and people. She was doing better."

Rel's amber eyes gazed at him with an almost mischievous glint. "Pardon the indelicate question, Major, but I assure you the answer is relevant…did your sexual relationship with the Commander suffer at all during this time?"

Kaidan's mouth closed, his jaw clenching as all emotion wiped from his face. "No." Was the brief answer.

"I thought not. Her recent seclusions…have you been with her?" Rel questioned again and then raised a hand, halting him with an elegant flick of her fingers. "I don't mean in the biblical sense. I mean at all. Did you just talk or laugh? Get angry or frustrated? Perhaps even just sit back and enjoy being with one another?"

Kaidan shook his head. "No. I've wanted to but…the colony is demanding…" He bit the words off and looked away.

"It wasn't a criticism, Major." Rel said quietly, leaning toward him. "You are building a technology limited society out of one that used to rely on tech for things as simple as shaving." Her gaze flickered to James' head and then back. "What you have built here, the order and organization you have maintained, is every bit as heroic as fighting a war."

"But at the cost of Rache?" He asked finally returning his gaze to her. "She told me…before we took out Sanctuary, before we went after the Illusive Man…she told me that if my life was the price she had to pay to win the war then it was too high a cost and she would not pay it. I'm trying to build a community here…is it costing me her?" Emotion choked at the final words.

Rel studied him for a long moment, gathering her own thoughts. "You need to accept that the woman you knew as Rache Shepard is essentially dead. There is no recovering her. The price she paid so that we could survive the reapers she paid out of her own blood, sweat and soul."

"Then I will put a bullet in her head myself and finish the job rather than see her become any more of a reaper than she already is." The words shook with anger and despair and determination.

"An overly dramatic solution to a problem I believe can be short term." Rel countered and he stared at her.

"Dammit, Rel, don't play your word games with me. Not on this." Kaidan shoved his way out of his chair and began to pace in a circle behind his desk. "Can Rache be saved?"

"Define 'saved'."

"Rel!" Kaidan shouted her name. "I'm not..."

Rel held up a hand, cutting him off without a word. "Like biotics, Rache's new abilities are a part of her. Her evolving not only machines…but humans as well." Rel glanced at James again, who stood, arms over his chest, glaring down at her. "That is part of who she now is. You keep telling her stop. You take away her accomplishments and she knows how much what is now a part of her, what she can now do, scares you."

All of the color in Kaidan's face leeched away as he stared at Rel. "Oh, shit." The words were whispered.

Rel nodded and glanced at James as well, seeing the confusion. "I mentioned biotics for a reason, Major, James. To those who don't understand biotics, the powers, the problems that seem to go along with being one can seem strange and scary. But to other biotics…it's just part of who that person is. Rache's new powers are a part of who she is…but you're telling her it's a bad part. The way the ignorant try to cure biotics of their powers."

Kaidan sank back into his chair and buried his face in his hands. "I didn't even see what I was doing." He mumbled against his hands. "The same thing I went through as a kid…I didn't…Rache, I am so sorry."

"She isn't a reaper, Kaidan." Rel dropped the formal completely, leaning toward him. "She isn't. You need to believe that. And you need to stop being afraid of what she is."

"I don't know what she is!" Kaidan said the words with a rush of frustration and guilt and pain.

Rel opened her mouth, paused and then carefully selected her words. "She's the woman who refused to win the war with the reapers without you." She licked her lips and then slowly continued. "In her thoughts…her feelings…there was…" Words seemed to fail her then, to desert her and the struggle to find them showed. "There was…you. Constant. A bond, I guess. Not…psychic or physical. Just…it was as if she has made you a part of her. Gods, that sounds so…obsessive. I'm not explaining this well."

"No…I get it." James spoke up, unexpectedly. "I think that's how we all ended up here. Lola's the stubborn type. Give her a goal and she does whatever she can to get whatever she wants. I don't think there's anything she wants more than for the Major to be a part of her life."

"Including give up part of who she now is." Rel agreed.

"The real Rache would never do that." Kaidan all but hissed. "She would take and she would scheme and she would bully everyone around her to get things her way, but she would not give up one single damn part of who she is for anyone else."

"Even the part that is so obviously scaring you away?" Rel countered quickly. "This woman who refused to win a galactic war if you couldn't be at her side?" She stood up and moved toward the door again. "There is more I could say, more I learned as the Commander saved my life, the lives on the _Wellspring_, but nothing else matters if you can't accept that she will never be who she was, Major. She can't be. She gave it up to win the war. To save us. You need to figure out if you can accept who she now is."

"I don't know who she now is!" Kaidan all but snapped.

Rel gave him a lingering look. "No. You don't. You just want her to be who she was." She paused at the doorway, near James before turning back to Kaidan. "A wise man once told me that change is inevitable and that sometimes the only way we get through life altering changes is by leaning on those about us. Trusting them to help see us through until what is new and scary becomes old and familiar."

A faint, bitter laugh floated across the room. "There is no shame in being afraid of things that are new and different. There is only shame in letting that fear control us." Kaidan murmured and she nodded. "We were talking about what Cerberus had done to you."

"And how hiding from it led me to starvation on the docks of the Citadel." Rel made an elegant nod of agreement. "Where will your fear lead you, Kaidan?"

He was silent for a long moment, simply looking at her. "It's good to know I chose good people for my students, Rel."

Rel accepted the compliment with a smile. "Thank you. You were a very good teacher. Now…I'd really like a bath and clean clothes."

"Hey, I'll help with that." James immediately, holding up a hand as he moved closer to her.

She smiled and arched an eyebrow, looking up at him.

"No bath and you're stuck with communal showers for now." Kaidan laughed. "James will show you the way."

"I have some ideas to help the Commander." Rel smiled. "I'll share them with you when you're ready to hear them." With a nod she left the room.

James hesitated, frowning at Kaidan. "Major…"

"Go. I need to…think." Kaidan said waving him out the door.

"I'll be around." James said with a decisive nod and was gone.

* * *

"Hey, what's up?" James reached out catching Rel's arm as she outpaced him, heading toward the center of their small village.

Rel very deliberately disengaged from his touch. "You don't need to escort me, James, I can find my way." She glanced around. "It's not like there is a large amount of ground to cover."

Confused, he frowned down at her. "It's not a problem, Rel."

She glanced at him and then quickly away. "I owe you an apology, too, James." She continued walking. "I should not have kissed you in front of the Commander. My only excuse is that I was very relived to not only be alive but…well, I was…pleased to see you again. To know that you had survived."

"It's okay. Feel free to kiss me all you want in front of whoever you want." James' tone reflected more of his confusion as he followed her, noticing how she still wouldn't look at him.

A laugh floated on the air toward him. "No, I don't think so." She answered.

He grabbed her arm again, pulling her about. "What the hell, Rel?" He demanded, anger flooding his words even as his grip remained gentle to keep from bruising her.

Her brown eyes finally rose to meet his and he could see her own temper reflected back. "I don't want to confuse you, James. I think it best for any future working conditions with the two of us that we maintain a friendship…"

"No." James cut her off with flat determination. "I don't want friendship and I'm not confused." He let her go to run a hand over his scalp and seemed a bit bemused to find hair there only to remember and dismiss the thought. "Not anymore."

Her expression hardened with her own anger. "I play second fiddle for no one, James. Not even the great Commander Shepard." She lifted her chin. "Perhaps even especially the great Commander Shepard."

"Geez, Rel, no." James shook his head again. "I mean…it's…I thought I was good, you know? That I could handle the fact I wasn't ever going to see you again because I just didn't think about it, okay? And there's a lot here that needs to be done so as far as distractions go, this place is perfect. But when you…when I saw…dammit, Rel, it took everything I had not to cry like a baby when I saw you again!"

Her anger faded to confusion infused with a blossoming hope. "James, you don't owe me anything…"

"Dammit, Rel, look!" He pulled his t-shirt collar back and jerked a second chain out. "See! That's where they've been since you gave them to me! Understand?"

Her lips curved in a faint smile as she reached out and held her dog tags on her fingers, studying her name. "I like words, James. They help me understand. They help eliminate confusion and assumption. I do not like to assume."

"Yeah, well, I suck at words." James growled back. "I prefer actions."

"You dumped me on my ass after giving me one of the best kisses of my life." Rel commented in droll tones. "So you'll understand why I'd like words."

James winced. "Yeah. Okay. Good point." He scrubbed a hand over the inch thick hair on his scalp again. "Look, I don't know if what I feel for you is love. I know I missed you. A lot. I know that going into that final battle with the reapers, I went in thinking I wasn't going to come out of it alive and I was okay with that because I thought you were dead."

Rel smiled. "And my being dead was preferable?" She teased gently and he growled at her again.

"No! I mean, yes! I mean…dammit, Rel, if you were dead and I was dead I thought maybe we could still…you know, hook up." Color began to surge up his cheeks. "I mean not just hook up…shit!"

Delighted laughter burst from her lips as she grinned up at him, brown eyes sparkling with merriment.

Determined, his jaw clenching, James persisted. "I mean that if there is some kind of afterlife I was going to go find you. Going into that last fight…I was thinking about you, Rel. Not the Commander. I just…I wished we'd had more time and now we have more time and I don't want to be friends and I will always feel something for the Commander, but it's different than what I feel for you and I want to…"

Rel cut him off, her mouth sealing over his as she pressed her body against his, her hands running up his broad chest over his thick neck muscles and up the nape of his neck to bury her fingers deep in the thick hair pulling him closer to her. Relieved, he settled his large hands on her waist, tugging her against his chest before moving lower to cup her round cheeks.

"No more words?" James asked with hope when she pulled back to give them a chance to breath.

Rel laughed. "I need a shower. I can't believe you're even touching me, let alone kissing me." She made a face running her fingers into the grimy ponytail at the back of her neck.

"Yeah, cause I never spent weeks on an op when showering was not an option." James pressed another kiss to her lips.

"And how many of your teammates were you kissing on this op?" Rel queried in idle tones sliding her hands about his waist, content to simply hold him.

"None…but there was this one sarge I really wanted to. She was real fine…" James grinned down at her and gave a mock wince at the pinch she gave the muscle on his ribs. "Hey, not as fine as you, chiflada. I'm just saying that if the opportunity had arisen I'd have hit that after we'd been out six weeks chasing pirates."

"I'm sure part of you absolutely believes telling me this is helping you get further with me, but really, it's not." Rel stepped back reluctantly. "Although you did offer to help me shower…"

James made a face. "We had to ban sexual relations in the communal shower. There was a Joker incident."

Rel frowned. "I'm not following." She tilted her head.

"Joker…he's the Normandy's pilot…and two of his girlfriends were using the showers when one of his other girlfriends decided to use them. Only girlfriend number three didn't know about one and two." James struggled to tame the grin curving his lips.

Rel's eyes narrowed. "You helped break it up, I gather." She said in droll tones.

"Well, yeah." This time he couldn't hide the beatific smile on his lips. "The soap made things slippery…"

"Spare me the details." Rel held up a hand. "Next time this Joker needs his catfight broken up, you'll let me do the honors, won't you?" Her voice held an edge.

James paused. "Can I watch you break it up?" His eyes went to a dreamy happy place.

"I need clean clothes, too. I didn't exactly leave the Citadel with anything but what I was wearing." Rel deliberately changed the subject. "And as much as I'm sure you'd love to watch me run around naked…"

A wide grin curved his lips. "Oh, yeah."

Rel rolled her eyes. "…I am not willing. Do we have a supply office I can req clean clothes from?"

"We pulled the supply we had from the Normandy. I'll get something in your size." He gave her a thorough study. "Yeah, we've got your size. Take your shower and I'll make sure clean stuff's waiting for you."

"Thank you." She smiled and then hesitated, reluctant to move away from him.

James smiled down at her. "I missed you, Rel. I suck at words but you should know that having you here is the best damn thing that has ever happened to me."

She kissed him again. "I like those words. I think they do just fine." A wicked smiled flirted on the curve of her lips. "You should also know that if I hadn't been so falling down tired when I saw you standing on the open bay of the _Wellspring_, that kiss would have gone much further, your Commander Shepard be damned."

James answered her smile with one of his own. "You know, housing for the _Wellspring_ survivors is on a priority basis right now, Rel. Families, married couples, they all have priority on getting their own place. Everyone else is barracked where you slept last night, in the meeting hall. Me, I got my own place, though. Just me. I'm thinking I should help a fellow soldier out and share."

Rel laughed. "Now those words, I like."


	6. Chapter 6

He had a ton of paperwork…done on his omni-tool, one of the few remaining in use…and he wasn't getting any of it done. Kaidan pushed back in the chair scavenged from the Normandy and shoved his way to his feet, pacing a small circle in his office, his hands running through his shaggy hair.

How could he have not seen it? What he was doing to Rache? After his childhood, even after BAaT and the years he'd spent wandering as a biotic outside the Alliance uniform, how could he not see the way he was treating her?

When had doing paperwork become easier than being alone with her?

"Traynor, I'm done for the day." He called to the tall woman as he walked past her desk.

"The scientists want to meet with you regarding a constitution…" Traynor began.

Kaidan pinched the bridge of his nose. "Schedule it for the day after tomorrow. Tell them to have a rough draft."

"A rough draft in less than 48 hours?" Traynor laughed.

Kaidan grinned. "Yeah. I know. It'll take them weeks. Weeks where I don't have to listen when they tell me I'm a dictator and they won't tolerate a military regime."

"I believe several of the doctors are beginning to see the benefit of the military after that lion-like creature stalked them last week, sir." Traynor laughed.

"Hmm…tasted like chicken, too." Kaidan chuckled. "I'll be with Commander Shepard until tomorrow. If I'm needed…find Vega and tell him to take care of it."

"Yes, sir." She saluted and he left.

* * *

Apparently Rache had hidden more than one omni-tool before being taken to the pool they thought of as 'theirs'. Kaidan grinned watching the lightening flares of blue across the back of her hands as she tapped on the holoboards, her eyes open and watching the incredibly fast scroll of information going on the viewscreen. That was such a...a Rache thing to do.

"Can it recharge itself using solar rays, yet?" He asked entering the clearing.

Rache didn't look guilty so much as irritated as she looked up from the now paused info scroll. "Yes. I'm upgrading the scanner's biological and geological input. Scouts will now be able to not only map the terrain they're covering, but scan it for minerals, plant life and other necessities we might need." A scowl had her mouth thinning. "I suppose you'll be wanting to take this, too."

"No." Kaidan shook his head moving closer to her. "Finish. Refine it as much as you want. Will it distract you if I'm here, watching?"

The omni-tool shut off.

She regarded him with suspicion and he felt something in his chest tighten. "I don't get it. Is this some sort of reverse psychology or something?"

"No, it's me playing hooky from work to be with you." Kaidan settled on the grass next to her. "We could use some improvements on the Mako, too, if you want to tinker with it next. Or the Kodiak."

Rache placed a hand on his forehead. "No fever. Biometric scans are normal. DNA says you're Kaidan Alenko. I do not detect any mental abnormalities since the last time we spoke."

Kaidan laughed and pulled her onto his lap. "What, no long ears? No tail? No braying laugh? Nothing to show what an ass I've been?"

Without conscious thought she curved her body toward him. "Usually you know you're being an ass because I tell you."

He brushed a long lock of red hair back behind her ear. "Yeah, well, this time you're a bit late and Rel beat you to it."

Rache jerked up in affront. "Why is Rel insulting you?"

"She wasn't. She was pointing out…some tough things I needed to hear." Kaidan sighed and looked down at the blue eyes that he still had trouble thinking of as hers. "She mentioned something else, too. That you have a new body."

Rache shot to her feet putting a good amount of distance between them. Her long red hair swung in a loose curtain hiding her features. "She had no right! That _bitch_!"

"Rache…"

"No! It wasn't…you weren't supposed to…_no!_" She began pacing in a tight circle, fists clenched, her body taunt.

Kaidan carefully made his way to his feet but didn't try to join her. "What happened to your body?" He asked in careful tones not missing how she stared down at her hands in distress and frustration.

"You weren't supposed to know." Rache said shaking her head as she looked away from him. "This…I was dying. There was no saving my body, the damage was too great and even if I had been completely healthy once I started…once I took…I had to be upgraded." Her words got softer the more she spoke. "My physical platform was too limiting. It was destroyed so I could control the reapers."

"Rache…" Kaidan reached out, gripping her chin turning her to look at him. "It's okay…"

She jerked free and moved further away from him. "No, Kaidan, it's not okay. I had to rebuild a body for myself. Lucky me, there was plenty of genetic material just lying around." A wrenching hand ran through her hair betraying her agitation. "It was easier to build me a new body from the dead meat around me than it was to cure Joker's Vrolik's without killing him."

He watched her carefully. "Dead meat…dead humans." The word was soft.

Rache's jaw clenched and she forced her head about, facing him. "Yes." The answer was defiant.

Kaidan's gaze dropped way from hers.

Rache's laugh scorched with fury. "You weren't supposed to know. No one was supposed to know. That cow should have kept her damn mouth shut."

"Give me a minute!" Kaidan snapped the words back at her. "Yeah, it's a bit much to take in. You look like you, Rache! Like the woman I fell in love with…"

"I am the woman you fell in love with!" She shouted the words meaning them to be hard and angry but the desperation and anguish was clear to both of them. "_I am!_"

Kaidan watched her, his eyes dark and unrevealing. After a long pause, a smile curved his lips. "No, you're not. Hell, Rache, I'm not even the same man I was when I first fell in love with you." He crossed the space between them and very deliberately pulled her tense body close. "This is twice you've come back from the dead."

Still stiff, she shook her head. "Technically I wasn't dead." She corrected. "My consciousness just didn't have a flesh platform for about four minutes."

He pulled a thick lock of red hair between his fingers, feeling the smooth texture. "You built yourself a new body in four minutes?"

"It's…complicated. I had the…raw…material to work with. The ingredients. I just used my personal DNA recipe to create a new one. One that is mostly flesh. There are some synthetic upgrades that I needed to allow me to continue controlling…things." Rache rested her forehead against his shoulder. "I didn't want you thinking you were having sex with Frankenstein so I didn't tell you and that bitch shouldn't have either!"

Kaidan laughed again. "Since Frankenstein was the man who created the monster from human body parts and not the monster himself, your allegory is a bit flat."

"Oh, shut it." Rache groaned at him. "How in the hell did you ever get laid as a teenager?"

"I was saving myself for you." Kaidan quipped right back and had the extreme pleasure of watching her lose herself in laughter.

It hit him then, what Rel had been trying to say. What she had been pointing out about the flaw in secluding Rache.

Emotion.

The Rache he had fallen in love with was all anger and fire and righteous fury demanding an outlet. The new Rache, the one with the blue eyes and lightening jags about her skin that flickered and grew brighter when she interacted with machines, that Rache was cold logic calculating the benefits and dismissing any cost not justified with pragmatism.

A slow grin curved his mouth as he watched Rache still snorting with amusement. If emotion was what it took to keep Rache…well, Rache, then there was no one better suited to pushing her buttons than he was.

"Rel said she had some other things to tell me about what she learned about you over the last several weeks. Oh, and she wanted to know if we were still having sex." He kept his expression benign.

Rache's shriek of outrage cleared the birds from the trees. "_She what?_" Color began to suffuse her face. "Why would she ask that, Kaidan?"

"Maybe she's worried about me?" He gave a one shoulder shrug. "She mentioned that she thought I was doing a great job running our new little colony, too. Especially while you were here all by yourself and not helping me."

"That egotistical, southern belle bitch!" Rache snarled the words. "We're going back, Kaidan. Now! There needs to be a conversation between my fist and her face!"

Feeling better than he had in a long time, Kaidan grinned and followed in her wake. "Whatever you say, dear." He murmured briefly wondering if he should warn Rel.

Naw. Rel was a big girl.

* * *

Rel pressed her fingers against the brown bark of a tree marveling how much it was like the large pecan trees back home on earth. There was a dark fruit of some kind growing from the branches that she'd already been informed was not only safe to eat, but tasted a bit like a watermelon once you got past the sour tang of the skin. She wasn't quite sure she was willing to taste it…yet.

No more space travel. No more hopping from one planet to the next. No more kicking back with the latest vid or ebook.

No more chocolate.

She blanched at the thought and wondered how much priority Chakwas had put her dietician team to providing either a substitute or alternate.

Yeah, there were things she was going to miss about the way things had been…but this place was so new, so fresh and welcoming. There was so much potential here. War had ravaged Earth for centuries before the reapers came, doing damage that would take even more centuries to heal, but here, on this new planet, there was peace.

"You bitch!" The epitaph screeched across the small clearing. "You told him about my body!"

Rel turned and raised an eyebrow, watching as the neon eyed woman stalked down the small hill toward her. Interestingly enough, the blue lines about Rache's body were muted…barely visible.

"I didn't realize you hadn't." Rel said in mild tones not moving from where she stood. "Really, Commander, I think that would be a rather important detail to impart to the man you were sleeping with." The words were idle, Rel's attention caught by the too large grey t-shirt the commander was wearing. The lines and knife of the special forces logo.

James' shirt.

"That's another thing! Kaidan and I have damn good sex and that is all you need to know about it!" Rache shoved her face near Rel's, her blue eyes narrowed.

Rel didn't back down. "Unless you close the connection, Rache, I will begin to learn much more about your relationship with the Major than I ever wanted to."

Rache flinched back, her expression confused.

"Yes. I can still feel you in my head. I can even go rummaging in yours again." Rel reached out a hand and placed a single finger on a blue strip of skin.

Rache knocked that touch away with a hiss. "Get out of my head."

"Get out of mine." Rel snarled back, her own temper rising. "Close the connection, Rache. Not just to me, but the one you have going there, too!" She jabbed a finger toward the sky.

"There could be more survivors out there!" Rache countered crossing her arms over her chest. "My scans could save more lives."

Rel shook her head. "You think we didn't try to connect with others when we were on the _Wellspring_? There is no one else out there close enough for you to help, Rache. Close the connection."

"Your primitive scanning equipment is in no way the equal of what I'm capable of." Rache sneered with derision.

"Oh." Rel made the word a cooing sound. "I see. This isn't actually about saving others, is it, Commander Shepard. This is about you playing God again. This is about you having the control…the power…to do whatever you wanted. Move a spaceship across a galaxy. Heal a genetic disease. Rebuild your own body from scraps dumped in a heap. This is about power and you don't want to give it up. You're still in control."

Color drained from Rache's face. "I released control, you judgmental bitch." The words were hissed. "You have no concept of how much I gave up!"

Rel's smile held the intensity of a cat stalking its prey. "No, but I have a pretty good idea of how much you resent it now. Was he worth it, Rache? Was he worth giving up control of the most dangerous and deadly creatures in our galaxy? For millions of years, thousands of cycles the reapers came, harvested and left. They were feared by every civilization that encountered them and you were their master." Her words were silky and sly as she tilted her head. "Have you told him that a part of you is starting to hate him because you had all that power and now you don't?"

"_Stay out of my head!_" Rache shouted the words, her fists clenched, her face white.

"_Close the connection!_" Rel matched the volume and intensity even as she moved closer. "You chose to become human again, Rache! You had the power of the reapers coursing through your thoughts, you will was their command. You could have been an Empress over a new and glorious empire causing all others to bow to your will. You could have been a God and created a new race based on the memories and remnants of a thousand cycles harvested and stored in reaper form. You could have been more than even I can imagine and you gave it up…but not quite." Rel began to circle Rache, her voice staying low and soft. "How close are you to longing more for the connection, the power, far more than you do the man you gave it all up for?"

"You stay away from Kaidan!" Rache hissed. "I will gut you…"

"Why bother with the mess." Rel cut her off, her tones light. "Why not assume direct control over me again? You can make me do whatever you want. We both know that."

"I only did that to save your life! To save the _Wellspring_and the people on it!" Rache countered, but her voice wavered with doubt.

"You did it because you liked it. Because it reminded you of the power you'd once had. The control." Rel drove the point home, her tone vicious. "You're still doing it, hoping for another excuse, another chance to be what you were for so brief a time. Why bother with the pretense, Commander Shepard? You can control me. You can control the geth. Order them to…"

"No! I wouldn't do that!" Rache shook her head.

"You already have!" Rel's voice was strong and fierce. "I was in your thoughts, Rache! Your memories. I know you better than you know yourself. The longer that connection remains open the more you will start to resent him and even hate him. Once that happens…well…" This time the smile on Rel's lips turned salacious and wicked. "We both know that if I tried I could have Kaidan Alenko in a heartbeat. We came very close when we were at Grissom together. Had I realized his loose standards when it came to fraternization rules and regs I would have done more to…console him when you turned traitor."

Rache's left fist shot out only to find Rel was ready and knocked the blow to the side with little effort.

"You don't even want him!" Rache hissed, rage seeping a dark red into her face. "You want James!"

"Variety is the spice of…" Rel wasn't nearly as quick this time, her head snapping back.

"You skanky bitch!" Rache snarled as Rel carefully wiped at the blood seeping from her nose. "I will not let you touch Kaidan!"

Rel arched an eyebrow. "Why would you settle for the rather mundane pleasures of the flesh when you have an open connection with the galaxy, Rache? When you have power at your fingertips? When you hope that someday, some way, you will touch the thoughts of a reaper and have them once more worshiping you as a God?"

"Because Kaidan is mine!" Rache stepped forward erasing the last bit of distance between them. "There is nothing in my life more important than he is and I will not let you ruin that!"

"I'm not the one ruining it, am I?" Rel countered with a smile. "I'll just be the one to pick up the pieces after you finally give up trying to be human."

Rache's fingers reached out and touched Rel's neck. The tall woman gave a cry of pain and collapsed to her knees, her body spasming.

"You don't even really want him. You don't even really want to spite me by trying to take him." Rache said with satisfaction.

Her face white with pain, Rel lifted her eyes. "No." The answer was rasped. "I wanted to see what you would do if I pushed. I wanted to know how easily you would enslave me just to prove a point."

Rache made a choking noise and stumbled back, breaking the connection.

"How easy was it, Rache?" Rel questioned, her body still shaking, her amber eyes fierce as she glared at the standing woman. "To take over my thoughts? To troll them for everything you wanted? Did it feel good?"

"Rel…I'm sorry." Rache's face was pale again, her expression devastated.

"Close the connection. Sever it and sear it, Rache." Rel persisted, the words a rasp that tore at her throat. "Not for me. Not even for Kaidan. Do it because what you feel right now is not something you should _ever_ forget."

Light burst from Rache's skin.

The color was blue and intense causing Rel to flinch away as it began to grow brighter. In her ears she could hear a hum and the hair on the back of her neck and arms began to rise as she felt the power build. It raced along her nerves, tingling. At first the sensation was pleasure but as the power grew the more it began to sting her skin, to hurt her as if too much electricity was pushing through skin.

Rel bit back against the pain, curling in on herself, determined to ride it out. Then her implants, the Cerberus links that had tried their hardest to control her, to brainwash her, began to flare and pulse to a discordant drumbeat inside her skull. On and on and Rel knew she couldn't last much longer against the pulse and energy in her head.

"Ending Control."

The words were followed by a soundless explosion that knocked Rel onto her back. She lay there, the pain ebbing, sucking in huge breaths of air at the relief as tears coursed out of her eyes and down into her hairline.

When she had gathered sufficient mastery of herself again, she shakily rolled to one side and looked up to find Rache staring up at the sky, toward space beyond, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"You're quite the manipulator, Rel." Rache said, her voice catching.

"My mother was an excellent teacher of emotional manipulation. I would give her credit for being better than I am at it, but I don't really like to give her credit for anything outside of my birth." After testing herself, Rel finally trusted that she could rise to her knees and slowly moved, her body aching.

"You knew Kaidan would spark a response." Rache continued, still not looking away from a place they could no longer reach.

"I was as much in your thoughts for all those weeks as you were in mine, Rache." Rel made her way to her feet, her body hunched like an old crone. "Your love for him is what helped you control the reapers…and it was what gave you the power to release them and bring everyone here."

"I hope your head hurts." Rache responded in mild tones.

Rel gave a hoarse chuckle. "Oh, it does. So does the rest of my body. Good job that."

Rache finally turned her head toward the taller woman, her gaze steady and strong. "I removed the implants Cerberus left in you. You're free of their touch."

"Your eyes…" Rel's voice trembled as her mouth dropped open.

Green eyes sparked with humor as Rache tilted her head. "They're prettier than yours, yes."

"Bitch." Rel snorted but couldn't contain the grin that curved her lips. "I suppose I should thank you."

"Yes, you damn well should." Rache raised a hand and shaking fingers pressed the smooth, pale flesh about her eyes. "You took a chance, Rel. For a woman you barely know."

"You saved my life. Not just with the _Wellspring_, but on the Citadel as well. You told me I had the strength to face anything and anyone." Rel inhaled deep, the echoes of pain in her body finally receding. "I don't like owing debts and I owed a fierce one to you. One that has only partially been repaid."

"Keep your mitts off Kaidan and we'll call it even." Rache countered in tones light with humor. "Not that he'd ever seriously consider you."

"Oh, he did." Rel pointed out with vicious glee. "He very much did. That scar tissue he has on his left hip is rather sensitive, isn't it?

Rache narrowed her eyes and moved to stand in front of the taller woman. "You seem to think you have a chance with James, too. Delusional, child." The mocking pity in Rache's voice wiped the vindictive humor from Rel's face. "He has my name tattooed on his back, did you know? Tell me, where is your name tattooed on him again?"

Rel bared her teeth. "Speaking of James…that's his shirt you're wearing. You need to give it back."

Rache widened green eyes in mocking surprise. "This? Oh, no. This is mine. Much like the man."

Rel smiled, the gesture anything but friendly. "You're going down, bitch."

"Bring it."


	7. Chapter 7

James found Kaidan sitting at the top of a small hill watching something, a cold beer in his hand.

"Whatcha up to, boss?" He asked as he walked up joining him.

"Watching Rel and Rache in the middle of a chick fight while I drink the last beer on the planet." Kaidan answered in easy tones gesturing with the dark bottle toward the bottom of the hill where two figures could be seen rolling around on the grass.

"Damn." James said after studying the scene for a moment. He turned his head toward Kaidan then. "I wanted the last beer."

Kaidan laughed and gestured next to him. "I invoke the brozone, James. Enter and share the last beer with your bro." He held the bottle up in invitation.

James didn't have to be asked twice, quickly settling near Kaidan and taking a long sip from the bottle. "Shit, Alenko, sharing the last beer on the planet? Feeling a serious amount of brolove right now."

Kaidan chuckled, his eyes not leaving the two women.

James passed the beer back. "So how serious is that and how long has it been going on?"

"Just a couple of minutes and if it were serious they wouldn't be fighting like girls, they'd be trying to kill each other." Kaidan answered taking a swallow from the beer. "And don't get me wrong, James, I brolove you, too, but whatever that's about, I really hope it's you and not me."

"Damn, I was just thinking the same thing." James muttered wincing as Rel jerked on Rache's long hair.

They were silent a long moment, both of them content to just watch.

"That's your shirt Rache's wearing, isn't it?" Kaidan asked after a moment.

"Yeah, the one you dressed her in when we first got here." James agreed taking the beer bottle offered to him.

"That's the third time Rel's gone after it." Kaidan continued as the woman in question began tugging at the shirt again.

James gave a confused shrug. "It's one of my favorites. I'd kind of like it back, but it didn't seem right asking the Commander for it. It's a real comfortable shirt."

Kaidan began to laugh, low and pleased. "Oh, that's not a shirt anymore, James." He said as tension left his shoulders. "That's a symbol of ownership now. Whatever that's about, it's you and not me." There was definite relief in his tone.

James watched Rel go after the shirt yet again. "Well, damn." He said and took another drink and passed the beer back.

The two men were quiet again, the bottle going back and forth.

"Hunh." James grunted after awhile. "How sick is it that watching them go at it is starting to turn me on?"

Kaidan gave a loud laugh. "It's okay, James. What gets said in the brozone, stays in the brozone. And I can't wait to tell Rache there's a brozone and she isn't invited."

James slanted a glance at the older man, laughing. "You, too, hunh?"

Kaidan chose to drink instead of answering.

They were mostly through the bottle when Rel finally managed to get the t-shirt off before shoving Rache's face into a pile of leaves. She stood up in triumph and immediately looked up the hill to where the men sat. With a contemptuous flick of her leaf strewn hair, she began marching toward them, trophy in hand.

"Better finish it." Kaidan muttered shoving the bottle at him. "Doesn't matter who won down there, we're both going to pay for it."

James swallowed the last mouthful just as Rel stopped in front of him.

"You have her name tattooed on your back?" The words were sharp and pissed.

"What? No!" James gaped at her. "I mean, yes, but…"

"Fine." Rel spat. With deliberate precision she took the collar of the t-shirt she had won and ripped it in half, dumping both pieces on James' lap before stalking past him.

James groaned picking up the two pieces. "I loved this shirt." He muttered.

Rache reached them, her torso clad only in a tight undershirt as she glared at Kaidan. "Rel tells me that your scar on your hip is very sensitive." Her voice was filled with ice.

"You have green eyes again, Rache!" Kaidan scrambled to his feet, stunned.

"Your powers of observation are legendary." Her tone actually grew colder. "And you drank the last beer."

James quickly shoved the empty bottle into Kaidan's hands as if getting rid of the evidence. "It was his idea!"

"Rache, your eyes…"

"Are green." She snapped. "Get over it." She stalked past him toward the colony once more.

Kaidan took a half step after her and then paused. Considering the retreating woman, he finally sank back down to the ground.

"I told you we'd both pay for it." He muttered and shook the bottle over his mouth trying for the last drops.

"I hope Joker gets his still working right soon." James agreed rubbing his fingers over his hair.

"Yeah, I'm starting to really miss beer."

* * *

**Epilogue:**

"So that was when I decided I had to kill all the males in the colony." James Vega grunted the words as he did chin lifts on a bar. He was in his happy place, feeling the welcome strain as he worked his muscles in front of two females who were hanging on him, one from the front, one from the back, cooing as he moved up and down with steady grace. "I mean, Joker's oldest is only three right now and he's already acting like his old man. Can't keep his pants on as he goes running through the colony."

Kaidan Alenko laughed softly not missing a jump as he skipped rope nearby. "I'm guessing Rel had a different resolution for when your girls hit puberty and start thinking about dating."

"Ya think?" James snorted as the infant on his back gave a loud burp. "Give that woman an option and she'll give you three other ones you didn't think of."

"And her first option? Since you do understand I have more than a passing interest in making sure all the males in the colony survive." Kaidan paused long enough to start twirling the rope the opposite direction and begin skipping again.

"She says she'll start teaching the girls early not only martial arts, but how to use that sword of hers. Start them throwing knives, too." James answered. "I'll work with them on boxing and some other nasty tricks I know. By the time they hit puberty they'll be the deadliest women on the planet."

Kaidan laughed again. "Good plan. Maybe you can let it be known that the only ones worthy of dating your girls will be those who can beat them in hand to hand."

"No way in hell." James shook his head. "I can already see Joker Junior trying harder to just put his hands on them than to win. I told Rel I reserve the right to kill any guy who touches my girls in a way I don't want them to."

"And what if they want to be touched?" The woman herself asked sauntering into the room, a large bag in hand.

"No, no. We already discussed you being logical about this." James set down lightly on the floor. "There is no logic. There is only me beating the crap out of anyone who looks at my babes the wrong way. And yes, I do get to determine what the wrong way is." He bent down and pressed a kiss to her lips.

"James, you're getting the girls all sweaty. Again." Rel sighed as he swung the infant on his back around to join her twin on his chest.

"Yep, and tonight I'm going to get you all sweaty again, too." He promised with a low growly voice leaning in for another kiss.

Rel laughed and curled into the kiss. "Ow! Ow! Baby, mommy's hair is not for pulling on." She pulled back gently trying to disentangle the clutched fist about her dark hair.

Kaidan set his jump rope to the side wiping his face with a nearby towel. "Hey, Rel. You and Rache finish the mediations?"

"Most of them." Rel agreed with a nod as she finished freeing her hair and pressed a kiss to the dark thicket on her baby's head. "We disagreed about whether to allocate more scouts and geth for exploration across the planet or expand the colony's resources."

"So we're going to settle this the old fashioned way." Rache added entering the room. She paused near Kaidan long enough to pass over the limp body she held against her chest before smacking him in the arm and then moving to the section of the exercise room cleared for hand to hand combat. "I'm going to kick her ass."

"You wish." Rel sneered back joining her.

James snagged a water bottle and made his way to where Kaidan was now sitting on a long bench settling the waking child on his lap. "What was the hit about?" The former asked as both of the girls on his chest began batting at the bottle and laughing.

"She says I knocked her up again." Kaidan's grin was anything but abashed. "I pointed out that there was a greater than fifty percent chance that she had instigated the knocking up herself but she's decided it's my fault anyway."

James made a hooting noise that startled the twins and then set them giggling again. "Congratulations, man! Now you'll be tied with Rel and me." Across the room Rel and Rache began to twist and block, dancing about one another.

Kaidan laughed, nodding. For a long moment they just watched the spar match, children on their laps. "Did you ever imagine, James, that you'd end up like this?" He finally asked, his tone full of wonder.

"This? No." James shook his head and cradled his girls closer. "This is beyond anything I ever dreamed of. I thought I'd end up dead in battle if I was lucky. Or worse. A broken drunk remembering the glory days holding up a bar in some seedy space station somewhere."

Reflexively they both looked up as if seeing past the wooden ceiling to the galaxy they no longer had the means to travel through.

"You?" James finally returned the question.

"No. I figured I end up like Hackett or Anderson." A shadow of grief passed Kaidan's face as he looked down at the brown eyed boy now awake and watching his mother. "Married more to my career in the Alliance than anyone else. Never thought I'd have a son, either."

"Wouldn't change a damn thing." James said pressing a kiss first to one dark covered head then another on the children he held.

"Nope…well, I might change that." Kaidan said with a sigh motioning to the fight.

"Hey! Hey! No blows below the belt!" James called out to the sparring women. "_Both of you!_"

"And that, Dack, is why you should really think hard about dating any of the Vega women." Kaidan murmured to his son.

James turned a wary eye to the toddler.

"Don't even think it, James." Kaidan warned him.

"Hunh." James grunted before lowering his mouth near his girls. "Daddy's going to teach you both how to fight and where to hurt guys, don't you worry."


End file.
